XJNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT  LOS  ANGELES 


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A  TRAMP  THROUGH 

THE  BRET  HARTE 

COUNTRY 


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A  TRAMP 

THROUGH  THE  BRET 

HARTE  COUNTRY 

BY 

THOMAS  DYKES  BEASLEY 

AUTHOR  OF  "THE  COMING  OF  PORTOLA" 

WITH  A  FOREWORD  BY 

CHARLES  A.  MURDOCK 


Above  the  pines  the  moon  was  slowly  drifting. 

The  river  sang  below; 

The  dim  Sierras,  far  beyond,  uplifting 

Their  minarets  of  snow. 

—Dicken*  in  Camp. 


PAUL  ELDER  AND  COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS  SAN  FRANCISCO 


Copyright,  1914 

PAUL  ELDER  &  COMPANY 


L 


jt,..^ 


-i'&X 


THE  CHAPTERS 

PAGE 

Foreword VII 

Preface XI 

Reminiscences  of  Bret  Harte.  "Plain  Language 
From  Truthful  James."  The  Glamour  of  the  Old 
Mining  Towns        ...... 


16 


Inception  of  the  Tramp.  Stockton  to  Angel's  Camp 
Tuttletown  and  the  "Sage  of  Jackass  Hill" 

Tuolumne  to  Placerville.  Charm  of  Sonora  and  Fas 
cination  of  San  Andreas  and  Mokelumne  Hill 

J.  H.  Bradley  and  the  Cary  House.  Ruins  of 
Coloma.  James  W.  Marshall  and  His  Pathetic 
End ,32 

Auburn  to  Nevada  City  Via  Colfax  and  Grass  Val- 
ley.    Ben  Taylor  and  His  Home         ...      41 

E.  W.  Maslin  and  His  Recollections  of  Pioneer  Days 

in  Grass  Valley.    Origin  of  Our  Mining  Laws     .      56 

Grass  Valley  to  Smartsville.  Sucker  Flat  and  Its 
Personal  Appeal 70 

Smartsville  to  Marysville.  Some  Reflections  on* 
Automobiles  and  "Hoboes" 79 

Bayard  Taylor  and  the  California  of  Forty-nine.    Bret 

Harte  and  His  Literary  Pioneer  Contemporaries      89 


III 


16V080 


THE  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PLATE 

Ruins  of  Coloma,  a  Name  "Forever  Associated 
With  the  Wildest  Scramble  for  Gold  the  World 
Has  Ever  Seen"      .         .         .        Frontispiece  I 

Map  of  the  "Bret  Harte  Country,"  Showing  the 
Route  Taken  by  the  Writer,  With  the  Towns, 
Important  Rivers,  and  County  Boundaries  of 
the  Country  Traversed  .         .         Page  xv 

The    Tuttletown    Hotel,    Tuttletown;    a    Wooden 
Building   Erected   in   the   Early  Fifties 
Facing  page  14  II 

Mokelumne  River;  "Whatever  the  Meaning  of  the 
Indian  Name,  One  May  Rest  Assured  It  Stands 
for  Some  Form  of  Beauty"    .     Facing  page  ^6         III 

"A  Mining  Convention  at  Placerville" 

Facing  page  34  IV 

South  Fork  of  the  American  River,  Coloma.     The 
Bend  in  the  River  Is  the  Precise  Spot  Where 
Gold  Was  First  Discovered  in  California 
Facing  page  38  V 

Ben  Taylor  and  His  Home,  Grass  Valley,  Showing 
the  Spruce  He  Planted  Nearly  Half  a  Century 
Ago Facing  page  50  VI 

E.   W.    Maslin   in   the   Garden   of    His   Alameda 

Home  ....         Facing  page  64        VII 

Angel's  Hotel,  Angel's  Camp,  Erected  in  1852, 
as  Was  the  Wells  Fargo  Building  Which 
Faces  It  Across  the  Street  .  following  page  96      VIII 

Main  Hoist  of  the  Utica  Mine,  Angel's  Camp, 
Situated  on  the  Summit  of  a  Hill  Overlooking 
the   Town TX 

The  Stanislaus  River,  Near  Tuttletown,  "Running 

in  a  Deep  and  Splendid  Caiion"       ...  X 

Jackass  Hill,  Tuttletown.     The  Road  to  the  Left 

Leads  to  the  Former  Home  of  "Jim"  Gillis  XI 


THE  ILLUSTEATIONS 

Home  of  Mrs.  Swerer,  Tuttletown.  The  Hotel 
and  This  Dwelling  Comprise  All  That  Is  Hab- 
itable of  the  Tuttletown  of  Bret  Harte    .         .       XII 

Main  Street,  Sonora,  "So  Shaded  by  Trees  That 

BuUdings  Are  Half-hidden"     ....      XIII 

Sonora,  Looking  Southeast.  "No  Matter  From 
What  Direction  You  Approach  It,  Sonora 
Seems  to  Lie  Basking  in  the  Sun".         .         .       XIV 

Main  Street,  San  Andreas,  "During  the  Mid-dav 

Heat,  Almost  Deserted" XV 

Metropolitan  Hotel,  San  Andreas ;  in  the  Bar-room 
of  Which  Occurred  the  "Jumping  Frog"  Inci- 
dent   XVI 

Mokelumne  Hotel,  on  the  Summit  of  Mokelumne 
Hill,  and  at  the  Head  of  the  Famous  Chili 
Gulch XVII 

Placerville,  the  County  Seat  of  El  Dorado  County, 

From  the  Road  to  Diamond  Springs         .         .  XVIII 

The  Cary  House,  Placerville.  "It  Was  Here  That 
Horace  Greeley  Terminated  His  Celebrated 
Stage  Ride  With  Hank  Monk"       .         .         .       XIX 

Middle  Fork  of  the  American  River,  Near  Auburn, 
and  Half  a  Mile  Above  Its  Junction  With  the 
North  Fork XX 

An  Apple  Orchard,  Grass  Valley,  "the  Trees 
Growing  in  the  Grass,  as  in  England  and  the 
Atlantic  States" XXI 

The  Western  Hotel,  Grass  Valley.    "The  Well  and 

Pump  Add  a  Quaint  and  Characteristic  Touch"     XXII 

A  Bit  of  Picturesque  Nevada  City,  Embracing  the 

Homes  of  Its  Leading  Citizens         .         .         .  XXIII 


-^ 


VI 


FOREWORD 

/N  California's  imaginary  Hall  of  Fame , 
Bret  Harte  must  be  accorded  a  promi- 
nent, if  not  first  place.  His  short  stories 
and  dialect  poems  published  fifty  years  ago 
mqde  California  well  known  the  world  over 
and  gave  it  a  romantic  interest  conceded 
no  other  community.  He  saw  the  pictur- 
esque and  he  made  the  world  see  it.  His 
poiver  is  unaccountable  if  ive  deny  him 
genius.  He  ivas  essentially  an  artist.  His 
imagination  gave  him  vision,  a  neiv  life  in 
a  beautiful  selting  supplied  colors  and  rare 
literary  skill  painted  the  picture. 

His  capacity  for  absorption  was  marvel- 
ous. At  the  age  of  about  twenty  he  spent 
less  than  a  year  in  the  foot-hills  of  the 
Sierras,  among  pioneer  miners,  and  forty- 
five  years  of  literary  output  did  not  exhaust 
his  impressions.  He  someivhere  refers  to 
an  ''eager  absorption  of  the  strange  life 
around  me,  and  a  photographic  sensitive- 
ness to  certain  scenes  and  incidents.'' 
''Eager  absorption,"  "photographic  sensi- 
tiveness," a  rich  imagination  and  a  fine 
literary  style,  largely  due  to  his  mother, 
enabled  him  to  win  at  his  death  this 
acknowledgment  from  the  "London  Spec- 

VII 


rOBEWOKD 

9f 


tator:  '  ''No  writer  of  the  present  day  has 
struck  so  powerful  and  original  a  note  as 
he  has  sounded/* 

Francis  Bret  Harte  was  horn  in  Albany, 
New  York,  August  25,  1836.  His  father 
was  a  teacher  and  translator;  his  mother 
a  woman  of  high  character  and  cultivated 
tastes.  His  father  having  died,  he,  when 
nine,  became  an  office  boy  and  later  a  clerk. 
In  1854  he  came  to  California  to  join  his 
mother  who  had  married  again,  arriving  in 
Oakland  in  March  of  that  year.  His  em- 
ployment  for  two  years  was  desultory.  He 
tvorked  in  a  drug  store  and  also  wrote  for 
Eastern  magazines.  Then  he  went  to  Alamo 
in  the  San  Ramon  Valley  as  tutor— a  valued 
experience.  Later  in  1856  he  went  to  Tuol- 
umne County  where,  among  other  things,  he 
taught  school,  and  may  have  been  an  ex- 
press messenger.  At  any  rate,  he  stored 
his  memory  with  material  that  ten  years 
later  made  him  and  the  whole  region 
famous. 

In  1857  he  went  to  Humboldt  County 
where  his  sister  was  living.  He  was  an 
interesting  figure,  gentlemanly,  fastidious, 
reserved,  sensitive,  with  a  good  fund  of 
humor,  a  pleasant  voice  and  a  modest  man- 
ner. He  seemed  poorly  fitted  for  anything 
that  needed  doing.    He  was  willing,  for  I 

vni 


FOREWORD 

saw  him  digging  post  holes  and  building 
a  fence  ivith  results  someivhat  unsatisfac- 
tory. He  ivas  more  successful  as  tutor  for 
two  of  my  hoy  friends.  He  finally  became 
printers'  devil  in  the  office  of  the  '* North- 
ern Calif ornian/'  where  he  learned  the 
case,  and  incidentally  contributed  graceful 
verse  and  clever  prose. 

He  returned  to  San  Francisco  early  in 
1860  and  found  work  on  the  ''Golden  Era/' 
at  first  as  compositor  and  soon  as  writer. 
In  May,  1864,  he  left  the  ''Golden  Era'' 
and  joined  others  in  starting  "The  Cali- 
fornian."  Two  months  later  he  was  made 
editor  of  the  neiv  "Overland  Monthly." 
The  second  number  contained  "The  Luck 
of  Roaring  Camp."  It  attracted  wide  at- 
tention as  a  new  note.  Other  stories  and 
poems  of  merit  followed.  Harte's  growing 
reputation  burst  in  full  bloom  when  in  1870 
he  filled  a  blank  space  hi  the  "Overland" 
make-up  ivith  "The  Heathen  Chinee."  It 
was  quoted  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate  and 
gained  world-ivide  fame.  He  received  flat- 
tering offers  and  felt  constrained  to  accept 
the  best.  In  February,  1871,  he  left  Cali- 
fornia. A  Boston  publisher  had  offered 
him  $10,000  for  whatever  he  might  write 
in  the  following  year.  Harte  accepted,  but 
the  output  was  small. 


IX 


FOREWORD 

For  seven  years  he  wrote  spasmodically , 
eking  out  his  income  hy  lecturing  and  news- 
paper ivork.  Life  was  hard.  In  1878  he 
sailed  for  Europe,  having  been  appointed 
consular  agent  at  Crefeld,  Prussia,  about 
forty  miles  north  of  Cologne.  In  1880  he 
ivas  made  Consul  at  Glasgow,  where  he  re- 
mained five  years.  His  home  thereafter 
ivas  London,  where  he  continued  his  lit- 
erary ivork  until  his  death  in  March,  1902. 

His  complete  works  comprise  nineteen 
volumes.  His  patriotic  verse  is  fervid,  his 
idyls  are  graceful  and  his  humorous  verse 
delightful.    The  short  story  he  made  anew. 

Harte's  instincts  and  habits  were  good. 
He  had  the  artistic  temperament  and  some 
of  its  incidental  weaknesses.  He  acknowl- 
edged himself  ^'constitutionally  improvi- 
dent/^ and  a  debt-burdened  life  is  not  easy. 
His  later  years  were  pathetic.  Those  who 
knew  and  appreciated  him  remember  him 
fondly.  California  failing  to  know  him, 
wrongs  herself. 

Charles  A.  Murdock. 


PREFACE 

J  DESIRE  to  obtain,  at  first  handy 
^jfil  any  possible  information  in  regard 
to  reminiscences  of  Bret  Harte,  Mark 
Twain  and  others  of  the  little  coterie  of 
writers,  tvho  in  the  early  fifties  visited  the 
mining  camps  of  California  and  through 
stories  that  have  become  classics,  played 
a  prominent  part  in  making  ''California'' 
a  synonym  for  romance,  led  to  undertaking 
the  tramp  of  which  this  brief  narrative  is 
a  record.  The  ivriter  met  with  unexpected 
success,  having  the  good  fortune  to  meet 
men,  all  over  eighty  years  of  age,  ivho  had 
known — in  some  cases  intimately — Bret 
Harte,  Mark  Twain,  ''Dan  de  Quille,'* 
Prentice  Mulford,  Bayard  Taylor  and 
Horace  Greeley. 

It  seems  imperative  that  a  relation  of 
individual  experiences — however  devoid  of 
stirring  incident  and  adventure — should  be 
written  in  the  first  person.  At  the  same 
time,  the  writer  of  this  unpretentious  story 
of  a  summer's  tramp  cannot  but  feel  that 
he  oives  his  readers — should  he  have  any — 
an  apology  for  any  avoidable  egotism.  His 
excuse  is  that,  notwithstanding  the  glamour 
attaching  to  the  old  mining  towns,  it  is  al- 

XI 


PREFACE 

7nost  incredible  hoiv  little  is  known  of  them 
by  the  average  Californian;  for  the  East- 
ern tourist  there  is  more  excuse,  since  the 
foot-hills  of  the  Sierras  lie  outside  the 
beaten  tracks  of  travel.  He  has,  therefore, 
assumed  that  ''a  plain  unvarnished  tale" 
of  actual  experiences  might  not  be  ivithout 
interest  to  the  casual  reader;  and  possibly 
might  incite  in  him  a  desire  to  see  for 
himself  a  country  not  only  possessed  of 
rare  beauty,  but  absolutely  unique  in  its 
associations. 

But  the  point  to  be  emphasized  is  that 
the  glamour  is  not  a  thing  of  the  past:  it 
is  there  noiv.  Nay,  to  a  person  possessed 
of  ayiy  imagination,  the  ruins — say,  of 
Coloma — appeal  in  all  probability  far 
stronger  than  would  the  actual  toivn  itself 
in  the  days  when  it  seethed  with  bustle  and 
excitement.  Not  to  have  visited  the  old 
milling  towns  is  not  to  have  seen  the 
''heart''  of  California,  or  felt  its  pulsa- 
tions. It  is  not  to  understand  ivhy  the  very 
name  ''California''  still  stirs  the  blood  and 
excites  the  imagination  throughout  the  civ- 
ilized world. 

If  this  brief  narrative  shoidd  induce  any- 
one to  "gird  up  his  loins,"  shoulder  his 
pack  and  essay  a  similar  pilgrimage,  the 
author  will  feel  that  he  has  not  been  unre- 

xn 


PREFACE 

warded.  And  if  a  man  over  threescore 
years  of  age  can  tramp  through  seven 
counties  and  return,  in  spite  of  intense 
heat,  feeling  better  and  stronger  than  when 
he  started,  a  young  felloiv  in  the  hey-day 
of  life  and  sound  of  ivind  and  limb  surely 
ought  not  to  be  discouraged. 

Thomas  Dykes  Beasley. 


XIII 


Map  of  the  "Bret  Harte  Country," 

Showing  the  Route  Taken  by  the  Writer, 

Together  With  the  Towns,  Important 

Rivers,  and  County  Boundaries  of 

the  Country  Traversed 


XV 


A  TRAMP  THROUGH 

THE  BRET  HARTE 

COUNTRY 


CHAPTER  I 

REMINISCENCES  OF  BRET 

HARTE.  "PLAIN  LANGUAGE  FROM 

TRUTHFUL  JAMES. '  THE 

GLAMOUR  OF  THE  OLD 

MINING  TOWNS 

IT  IS  forty-four  years  since  the  writer 
met  the  author  of  ''The  Luck  of  Roar- 
ing  Camp' ' — that  wonderfuFBTendiiig' 
within  the  limits  of  a  short_story^^if_ 
humor,  pathos  and  tragedy — which,  in- 
credible as  it  may  seem,  met  with  but  a 
cold  reception  from  the  local  press,  and 
was  even  branded  as  ''indecenf  and  ''im- 
modest!'' 

Un  the  occasion  referred  to,  I  was 
strolling  on  Rincon  Hill — at  that  time  the 
fashionable  residence  quarter  of  San  Fran- 
cisco— in  company  with  Mr.  J.  H.  Wildes, 
whose  cousin,  the  late  Admiral  Frank 
Wildes,  achieved  fame  in  tlie  battle  of 
Manila  Bay.  Mr.  Wildes  called  my  atten- 
tion to  an  approaching  figure  and  said: 
''Here  comes  Bret  Harte,  a  man  of  un- 
usual literary  ability.  He  is  having  a  hard 
struggle  now,  but  only  needs  the  oppor- 
tunity, to  make  a  name  for  himself. '^ 


A  TEAMP  THROUGH  THE  BRET  HAETE  COUNTRY 

That  opportunity  arrived  almost  imme- 
diately. In  the  September  number  of  the 
Overland  Monthly,  1870,  of  which  maga- 
zine Mr.  Harte  was  then  editor,  appeared 
''Plain  Language  from  Truthful  James,'' 
or  ''The  Heathen  Chinee,"  as  the  poem 
was  afterwards  called.  A  few  weeks  later, 
to  my  amazement,  while  turning  the  pages 
of  Punch  in  the  Mercantile  Library,  I 
came  across  "The  Heathen  Chinee;"  an 
unique  compliment  so  far  as  my  recollec- 
tion of  Punch  serves.  To  this  generous 
and  instantaneous  recognition  of  genius 
may  be  attributed  in  no  small  measure  the 
rapid  distinction  won  by  Bret  Harte  in  the 
world  of  letters. 

Mr.  Harte  read  his  "Heathen  Chinee"  to 
Mrs.  Wildes,  some  time  before  it  was  pub- 
lished. This  lady,  a  woman  of  brilliant 
attainments  and  one  who  had  a  host  of 
friends  in  old  San  Francisco,  possessed 
the  keenest  sense  of  humor.  Mr.  Harte 
greatly  valued  her  critical  judgment.  He 
was  in  the  habit  of  reading  his  stories  and 
poems  to  her  for  her  opinion  and  decision, 
before  publication,  and  it  may  well  be  that 
her  hearty  laughter  and  warm  approval 
helped  to  strengthen  his  wavering  opinion 
of  the  lines  which  con\ailsed  Anglo-Saxon- 
dom;  for  no  one  was  more  surprised  than 

4 


BEMINISCENCES  OF  BRET  HARTE 

he  at  the  sensation  they  created.  He  had 
even  offered  the  poem  for  publication  to 
Mr.  Ambrose  Bierce,  then  editing  the  San 
Francisco  News  Letter;  but  Mr.  Bierce, 
recognizing  its  merit,  returned  it  to  Mr. 
Harte  and  prevailed  upon  him  to  publish 
it  in  his  own  magazine. 

Had  one  at  that  time  encountered  Mr. 
Harte  in  Piccadilly  or  Fifth  Avenue,  he 
would  simply  have  been  aware  of  a  man 
dressed  in  perfect  taste,  but  in  the  height 
of  the  prevailing  fashion.  On  the  streets 
of  San  Francisco,  however,  Bret  Harte  was 
always  a  notable  figure,  from  the  fact  that 
the  average  man  wore  "  slops, '^  devoid 
alike  of  style  or  cut,  and  usually  of  shiny 
broadcloth.  Broad-brimmed  black  felt  hats 
were  the  customary  headgear,  completing  a 
most  funereal  costume. 

Mr.  Harte  impressed  me  as  being  singu- 
larly modest  and  utterly  devoid  of  any 
form  of  affectation.  To  be  well  dressed 
in  a  period  when  little  attention  was  paid 
to  clothes  by  the  San  Franciscan,  might, 
it  is  true,  in  some  men  have  suggested  as- 
sumption of  an  air  of  superiority ;  but  with 
Mr.  Harte,  to  dress  well  was  simply  a  nat- 
ural instinct.  His  long,  drooping  mous- 
tache and  the  side-whiskers  of  the  time — 
incongruous  as  the  comparison  may  seem 

5 


A  TEAMP  THROUGH  THE  BRET  HARTE  COUNTRY 

— called  to  mind  the  elder  Sothern  as 
''Lord  Dundreary.''  His  natural  expres- 
sion was  pensive,  even  sad.  When  one 
considers  that  pathos  and  tragedy,  perhaps 
even  more  than  humor,  pervade  his  stories, 
that  was  not  surprising. 

I  had  but  recently  arrived  from  England 
— a  mere  lad.  California  was  still  the  land 
of  gold  and  romance;  the  glamour  with 
which  Bret  Harte  surrounded  both,  that 
bids  fair  to  be  immortal,  held  me  en- 
thralled. Angel's,  Kougli  and  Eeady, 
Sandy  Bar,  Poker  Flat,  Placerville,  Tuol- 
umne and  old  Sonora  represented  to  me 
enchanted  ground.  Fate  and  life's  vicissi- 
tudes prevented,  except  in  imagination,  a 
knowledge  of  the  Sierra  foot-hill  counties ; 
but  in  the  back  of  my  head  all  these  years 
had  persisted  a  determination  to,  at  some 
time,  visit  a  region  close  to  the  heart  of 
every  old  Californian,  and  what  better  way 
than  on  foot? 

In  spite  of  Pullman  cars  and  automobiles 
— or,  rather,  perhaps  on  account  of  them — 
the  only  way  to  see  a  country,  to  get  into 
touch  with  Nature  and  meet  the  inhabi- 
tants on  the  dead  level  of  equality  and 
human  sympathy,  is  to  use  Nature's 
method  of  locomotion.  Equipped  with  a 
stout  stick — with  a  view  to  dogs — a  fold- 


KEMINISCENCES  OF  BKET  HARTE 

ing  kodak  camera,  and  your  ^^  goods  and 
chattels"  slung  in  a  haversack  across  your 
shoulders,  you  feel  independent  of  time- 
cards  and  ^^routes;'^  and  sally  forth  into 
the  world  with  the  philosophical  determina- 
tion to  take  things  as  they  come;  keyed  to 
a  pleasurable  pitch  of  excitement  by  the 
knowledge  that  ^'Adventure"  walks  with 
you  hand-in-hand,  and  that  the  '*  humors  of 
the  road"  are  yours  for  the  seeing  and 
understanding. 


CHAPTER  II 

INCEPTION  OF  THE  TRAMP. 

STOCKTON  TO  ANGEL'S  CAMP. 

TUTTLETOWN  AND  THE 

"SAGE  OF  JACKASS  HILL" 

FOLLOWING  as  near  as  might  be  the 
route  of  the  old  Argonauts,  I 
avoided  trains,  and  on  a  warm 
summer  night  boarded  the  Stock- 
ton boat.  In  the  early  morning  you  are 
aware  of  slowly  rounding  the  curves  of  the 
San  Joaquin  Kiver.  Careful  steering  was 
most  essential,  as  owing  to  the  dry  season 
the  river  was  unusually  low.  The  vivid 
greens  afforded  by  the  tules  and  willows 
that  fringe  the  river  banks,  and  the  occa- 
sional homestead  surrounded  by  trees,  with 
its  little  landing  on  the  edge  of  the  levee, 
should  delight  the  eye  of  the  artist. 

I  lost  no  time  in  Stockton  and  headed 
for  Milton  in  the  foot-hills,  just  across  the 
western  boundary  of  Calaveras  County. 
The  distance  was  variously  estimated  by 
the  natives  at  from  twenty  to  forty  miles — 
Californians  are  careless  about  distances, 
as  in  other  matters.  Subsequently  I  en- 
tered it  in  my  note  book  as  a  long  twenty- 

9 


STOCKTON  TO  ANGELAS  CAMP 

eight.  Eighteen  miles  out  from  Stockton, 
at  a  place  called  Peters,  which  is  little 
more  than  a  railway  junction,  you  leave 
the  cultivated  land  and  enter  practically 
a  desert  country,  destitute  of  water,  trees, 
undergrowth  and  with  but  a  scanty  growth 
of  grass.  I  ate  my  lunch  at  the  little  store 
and  noted  with  apprehension  that  the  ther- 
mometer registered  104  degrees  in  the 
shaded  porch.  I  am  not  likely  to  forget 
that  pull  of  ten  miles  and  inwardly  con- 
fessed to  a  regret  that  I  had  not  taken  the 
train  to  Milton.  Accustomed  on  ^'hikes'' 
to  a  thirst  not  surpassed  by  anything  ^^east 
of  Suez,"  I  never  before  appreciated  the 
significance  of  the  word  '^parched'' — the 
*  ^  tongue  cleaving  to  the  roof  of  the  mouth. ' ' 
At  Milton  one  enters  the  land  of  ro- 
mance. What  was  even  more  appreciable 
at  the  time,  it  marks  the  limit  of  the  in- 
hospitable country  I  had  traversed.  Mr. 
Eobert  Donner,  the  proprietor  of  the  Mil- 
ton Hotel,  told  me  he  once  had  ^^  Black 
Bart"  as  his  guest  for  over  a  week,  being- 
unaware  at  the  time  of  his  identity.  This 
famous  bandit  in  the  early  eighties  ''held 
up"  the  Yosemite  stage  time  and  again. 
In  fact,  he  terrorized  the  whole  Sierra 
country  from  Redding  to  Sacramento.  He 
was    finally    captured    in    San    Francisco 


A  TKAMP  THROUGH  THE  BRET  HARTE  COUNTRY 

through  a  clew  obtained  from  a  laundry 
mark  on  a  pair  of  white  cuffs.  For  years, 
Mr.  Donner  cherished  a  boot  left  by  the 
highwayman  in  the  hurry  of  departure, 
which,  much  to  his  annoyance,  was  finally 
abstracted  by  some  person  unknown.  To 
dispose  of  Black  Bart;  he  served  his  term 
and  was  never  seen  again  in  the  Sierras. 
There  is  a  rumor  that  Wells  Fargo  &  Com- 
pany, the  chief  sufferers  by  his  activities, 
made  it  worth  his  while  to  behave  himself 
in  the  future. 

The  following  day  I  reached  Copper- 
opolis.  This  place  very  justly  has  the 
reputation  of  being  one  of  the  hottest  spots 
in  the  foot-hills.  Owing  to  resumed  opera- 
tions on  a  large  scale,  of  the  Calaveras 
Copper  Company,  I  found  the  little  settle- 
ment crowded  to  its  fullest  capacit}^,  and 
was  perforce  compelled  to  resort  to  gen- 
uine ^'hobo"  methods — in  short,  I  spent 
the  night  under  the  lee  of  a  haystack.  My 
original  intention  had  been  to  walk  thence 
to  Sonora,  twenty-four  miles;  but  finding 
the  road  would  take  me  again  into  the  val- 
ley, I  decided  to  make  for  Angel's  Camp, 
only  thirteen  miles  away. 

It  is  uphill  nearly  all  the  way  from  Cop- 
peropolis  to  AngePs  Camp,  but  mostly  you 
are  in  the  pine  woods.    My  spirits  rose  with 

10 


the  altitude  and  delight  at  the  magnificent 
view  when  I  at  last  reached  the  summit. 
Toiling  up  the  grade  in  the  dust,  I  met  a 
good  old-fashioned  four-horse  Concord 
stage,  which  from  all  appearances  might 
have  been  in  action  ever  since  the  days  of 
Bret  Harte.  At  last  I  felt  I  was  in  touch 
with  the  Sierras.  The  driver  even  honored 
my  bow  with  an  abrupt  ^' Howdy !^'  which 
from  such  a  magnate,  I  took  to  be  a  good 
omen. 

In  common  with  all  the  old  mining  towns 
— though  I  was  unaware  of  it  at  the  time — 
AngePs,  as  it  is  usually  called,  is  situated 
in  the  ravine  where  gold  was  first  discov- 
ered. It  straggles  down  the  gulch  for  a 
mile  and  a  half.  There  are  a  number  of 
pretty  cottages  clinging  to  the  steep  hill- 
sides, surrounded  with  flowers  and  trees, 
the  whole  effect  being  extremely  pleasing. 
I  registered  at  the  Angel's  Hotel,  built  in 
1852.  Across  the  street  is  the  Wells  Fargo 
building,  erected  about  the  same  time  and 
of  solid  stone,  as  is  the  hotel.  Nothing  on 
this  trip  surprised  me  more  than  the  solid- 
ity of  the  hotels  and  stores  built  in  the  early 
fifties.  Instead  of  the  flimsy  wooden  struc- 
tures I  had  imagined,  I  found,  for  the 
most  part,  thick  stone  walls.  It  was  evi- 
dent the  pioneers  believed  in  the  per- 
il 


A  TRAMP  THROUGH  THE  BRET  HARTE  COUNTRY 

manence  of  the  gold  deposits  in  the  Mother 
Lode.  Possibly  they  were  right;  AngePs 
is  anything  bnt  a  dead  town  to-day.  The 
Utica,  Angel's  and  Lightner  mines  give 
employment  to  hundreds  of  men. 

In  the  afternoon  I  visited  the  Bret  Harte 
Girls'  High  School.  It  is  a  very  simple 
frame  building,  on  the  summit  of  a  hill 
overlooking  the  town.  The  man  who  di- 
rected me  how  to  find  it,  I  discovered  had 
not  the  remotest  idea  who  Bret  Harte 
might  be;  ''John  Brown"  would  have  an- 
swered the  purpose  equally  as  well.  In 
fact,  all  through  the  seven  counties  I 
traversed — Tuolumne,  Calaveras,  Amador, 
El  Dorado,  Placer,  Nevada  and  Yuba — I 
found  Bret  Harte  had  left  but  a  hazy  and 
nebulous  impression.  Mark  Twain,  Pren- 
tice Mulford,  Horace  Greeley,  Bayard 
Taylor,  even  ''Dan  de  Quille,"  seemed  bet- 
ter known. 

The  next  morning  I  started  for  Sonora. 
In  seven  miles  I  came  to  the  Stanislaus 
River,  running  in  a  deep  and  splendid 
canon.  The  river  here  is  spanned  by  a 
fine  concrete  bridge,  built  jointly  by  Tuol- 
umne and  Calaveras  Counties,  between 
which  the  river  forms  the  dividing  line. 
In  the  bottom  of  the  canon  is  the  Melones 
mine,  with  a  mill  operating  one  hundred 

12 


stamps.  The  main  tunnel  is  a  mile  and  a 
half  in  length ;  the  longest  mining  tunnel  in 
the  State,  I  was  told. 

A  steep  pull  of  two  miles  out  of  the 
canon  brought  me  to  Tuttletown.  Here  I 
stayed  several  hours,  for  the  interest  of 
the  whole  trip,  so  far  as  Bret  Harte  was 
concerned,  centered  around  this  once  cele- 
brated camp,  and  Jackass  Hill,  on  which, 
at  one  time,  lived  James  W.  Gillis,  the  sup- 
posed prototype  of  ^^ Truthful  James.''  He 
died  a  few  years  ago,  but  his  brother, 
Stephen  E.  Gillis,  is  living  there  to-day, 
and  after  some  little  difficulty  I  succeeded 
in  finding  his  house. 

Mr.  Gillis  scouts  the  idea  that  his  brother 
^^Jim"  was  the  ^'Truthful  James"  of  Bret 
Harte.  He  said  that  in  reality  it  was  J.  W. 
E.  Townsend,  known  in  old  times  as  *^  Al- 
phabetical Townsend, ' '  also  by  the  uncom- 
plimentary appellation  of  "Lying  Jim." 
According  to  Mr.  Gillis,  Bret  Harte  made 
but  one  visit  to  Tuttletown.  He  arrived 
there  one  evening  ''dead  broke"  and 
James  put  him  up  for  the  night  and  lent 
him  money  to  help  him  on  his  way.  Per- 
sonally, Mr.  Gillis  never  met  Bret  Harte 
but  he  had  seen  Mark  Twain  on  a  number 
of  occasions.  I  got  the  distinct  impression 
that  Stephen  Gillis  disliked  the  notoriety 

13 


A  TEAMP  THROUGH  THE  BRET  HARTE  COUNTRY 

his  brother  had  gained,  through  the  fact 
that  his  name  had  become  indissolubly 
linked  with  the  ^ '  Truthful  James ' '  of  Bret 
Harte's  verses.  Be  that  as  it  may,  I  later 
on  met  several  men  who  had  known  ^^  Jim'' 
Gillis  intimately  and  they  all  agreed  that 
he  possessed  a  keen  sense  of  humor  and 
had  at  command  a  practically  inexhaust- 
ible stock  of  stories,  upon  which  he  drew 
at  will.  Whether  Bret  Harte  derived  any 
inspiration  from  ^'Jim''  Gillis  may  per- 
haps always  remain  in  doubt;  but  that 
Mark  Twain  did,  there  cannot,  I  think,  be 
any  question. 

In  a  recent  life  of  Bret  Harte,  by  Henry 
Childs  Merwin,  it  is  stated  (page  21)  that 
in  1858  Bret  Harte  acted  as  tutor  in  a 
private  family  at  Alamo,  in  the  San  Eamon 
valley,  which  lies  at  the  foot  of  Mount 
Diablo.  On  page  50,  however,  we  read: 
'^In  1858  or  thereabouts,  Bret  Harte  was 
teaching  school  at  Tuttletown,  a  few  miles 
north  of  Sonora. ' '  It  would  seem  that  this 
statement  is  erroneous,  apart  from  the  fact 
that  it  conflicts  with  the  prior  date  in  refer- 
ence to  Alamo. 

Mrs.  Swerer,  who  has  lived  continuously 
at  Tuttletown  since  1850,  coming  there  at 
the  age  of  ten,  told  me  she  received  her 
education  at  the  Tuttletown  public  school, 

14 


g^?? 

^  t" 


o    H 

O     S 


33  ;i 


^  ^  S-  ^      r 
o   H> 

3  ®  w 


tD 


o 

3 

QK3 


STOCKTON  TO  ANGEL  S  CAMP 

as  did  her  children  and  her  children's 
children — she  is  now  a  great-grandmother ! 
She  said  most  positively  that  she  never 
saw  Bret  Plarte  in  her  life,  but  had  fre- 
quently seen  ^'Dan  de  Quille''  and  Mark 
Twain.  The  latter,  she  said,  made  periodic 
visits  to  Tuttletown,  and  always  stayed 
with  '^Jim''  Gillis — called  by  Twain,  the 
^'Sage  of  Jackass  Hill.'' 

Mrs.  Gross,  who  keeps  the  Tuttletown 
Hotel  and  whose  husband  owned  a  store 
across  the  way,  built  of  stone  but  now  in 
ruins,  was  horn  in  Tuttletown.  She  as- 
serted she  never  heard  of  Bret  Harte  being 
in  Tuttletown  and  feels  it  to  be  impossible 
he  ever  taught  school  there.  At  this  an- 
cient hostelry,  built  of  wood  and  dating 
back  to  the  early  fifties,  I  dined  in  com- 
pany with  an  old  miner,  who  told  me  he 
came  across  "Jim"  Gillis  in  Alaska.  He 
said:  "Gillis  was  a  great  josher.  For  the 
life  of  me,  I  could  never  tell  from  his  stories 
whether  he  had  been  to  the  Klondike  or 
not." 


15 


CHAPTER  III 

TUOLUMNE  TO  PLACERVILLE. 
CHARM  OF  SONORA  AND  FAS- 
CINATION OF  SAN  ANDREAS 
AND  MOKELUMNE  HILL 

SONOEA  is  nine  miles  distant  from  Tut- 
tletown,  and  I  reached  it  in  the  early 
I  afternoon.    Perhaps  of  all  the  old 
mining  towns,  Sonora  is  the  most 
fascinating,   on  account  of  the  exceeding 
beauty  of  the  surrounding  country.     No 
matter  from  what  direction  you  approach 
it,  Sonora  seems  to  lie  basking  in  the  sun, 
buried  in  a  wealth  of  greenery,  through 
which   gleam   white   walls    and    roofs    of 
houses.     Even  its  winding  streets  are  so 
shaded  by  graceful  old  trees  that  buildings 
are  half  hidden.     The  bustle  and  excite- 
ment of  the  mining  days  are  passed  for- 
ever, in  all  probability,  for  old  Sonora; 
but  in  their  place  have  come  the  peace  and 
quiet  that   accompany  the  tillage   of  the 
soil;  for  Sonora  is  now  the  center  of  a 
prosperous   agricultural   district   and   the 
town  maintains  a  steady  and  continuous 
growth. 

Here  I  had  the  pleasure  of  an  interview 
with  Mr.  John  Neal,  a  prominent  and  re- 

16 


TUOLUMNE  TO  PLACEKVILLE 

spected  citizen  of  Tuolumne  County,  who 
as  Commissioner  represented  his  county  at 
the  San  Francisco  Midwinter  Fair.  Mr. 
Neal  is  over  eighty,  but  still  hale  and 
hearty.  He  was  the  first  person  I  had  thus 
far  encountered  who  had  known  Bret  Harte 
in  the  flesh.  He  had  also  known  and  fre- 
quently met  Mark  Twain,  "Dan  de  Quille^' 
and  Prentice  Mulford.  Of  the  four,  it  was 
evident  that  Mulford  had  left  by  far  the 
most  lasting  as  well  as  favorable  impres- 
sion on  his  mind.  Of  him  he  spoke  in 
terms  of  real  affection.  *^  Prentice  Mul- 
ford,'' he  said,  '^was  a  brilliant,  very  hand- 
some and  most  lovable  young  man."  I 
asked  him  how  these  young  men  were  re- 
garded by  the  miners.  He  said:  "In  all 
the  camps  they  were  held  to  be  in  a  class 
by  themselves,  on  account  of  their  educa- 
tion and  literary  ability.  Although  they 
wore  the  rough  costume  of  the  miners,  it 
was  realized  that  none  of  them  took  min- 
ing seriously  or  made  any  pretense  of  real 
work  with  pick  and  shovel.''  Mr.  Neal 
knew  James  Gillis  intimately  and  admitted 
he  was  a  great  story-teller.  In  fact,  at 
the  bare  mention  of  his  name  he  broke  into 
a  hearty  laugh.  ' '  Oh,  Jim  Gillis,  he  was  a 
great  fellow!"  he  exclaimed.  He  said  un- 
questionably Mark  Twain  got  a  good  deal 

17 


A  TRAMP  THROUGH  THE  BRET  HARTE  COUNTRY 

of  material  from  him,  and  feels  certain  that 
Bret  Harte  must  have  met  him  at  least 
on  several  occasions.  Mr.  Neal  stated 
that  np  to  the  time  of  the  Midwinter 
Fair,  the  output  of  gold  from  Tuolumne 
county  reached  the  astonishing  fig^ares  of 
$250,000,000!  What  it  has  amounted  to 
since  that  time,  I  had  no  means  of  ascer- 
taining. 

It  is  only  twelve  miles  from  Sonora  to 
Tuolumne.  From  the  top  of  the  divide 
which  separates  the  valleys  there  is  a  beau- 
tiful view  of  the  surrounding  country,  the 
dim  blue  peaks  of  the  Sierra  Nevada  form- 
ing the  eastern  sky-line.  One  of  the  chief 
charms  of  an  excursion  through  these  foot- 
hill counties  is  the  certainty  that  directly 
you  reach  any  considerable  elevation  there 
will  be  revealed  a  magnificent  panorama, 
bounded  only  by  the  limit  of  vision,  range 
after  range  of  mountains  running  up  in 
varying  shades  of  blue  and  purple,  to  the 
far  distant  summits  that  indicate  the  back- 
bone of  California. 

Tuolumne  is  situated  in  a  circular  basin 
rather  than  in  a  valley,  and  thus  being  pro- 
tected from  the  wind,  in  hot  weather  the 
heat  is  intense.  If  there  are  any  mining 
operations  in  the  immediate  vicinity,  they 
are  not  in  evidence  to  the  casual  observer. 

18 


TUOLUMNE  TO  PLACEKVILLE 

It  is,  however,  one  of  the  biggest  timber 
camps  in  the  State.  In  the  yards  of  the 
West  Side  Lumber  Company,  covering  sev- 
eral hundred  acres,  are  stacked  something 
like  30,000,000  feet  of  sugar  pine.  The 
logs  are  brought  from  the  mountains 
twenty  to  twenty-five  miles  by  rail,  and 
sawn  into  lumber  at  Tuolumne.  I  was  told 
that  the  bulk  of  the  lumber  manufactured 
here  was  shipped  abroad,  a  great  deal 
going  to  Australia. 

Tuolumne,  in  Bret  Harte's  time,  was 
called  Summersville.  It  was  destroyed  by 
fire  about  fourteen  years  ago,  but  the  new 
town  has  already  so  assimilated  itself  to 
the  atmosphere  of  its  surroundings,  that  its 
comparative  youth  might  easily  escape  de- 
tection. Altogether,  I  was  disappointed 
with  Tuolumne,  having  expected  to  find  a 
second  Angel's,  owing  to  its  prominence 
in  Bret  Harte's  stories.  A  lumber  camp, 
while  an  excellent  thing  in  its  way,  is 
neither  picturesque  nor  inspiring.  I  spent 
the  night  at  the  ^'Turnback  Inn,''  a  large 
frame  building,  handsomely  finished  in- 
teriorly and  built  since  the  fire.  It  is,  I  be- 
lieve, quite  a  summer  resort,  as  Tuolumne 
is  the  terminus  of  the  Sierra  Railway,  and 
one  can  go  by  way  of  Stockton  direct  to 
Oakland  and  San  Francisco. 


19 


A  TBAMP  THBOUGH  THE  BRET  HARTE  COUNTRY 

Eeturning  to  AngePs  the  next  day,  I 
lingered  again  at  Tuttletown.  There  is  a 
strange  attraction  about  the  place — it 
would  hold  you  apart  from  its  associations. 
The  old  hotel,  fast  going  to  decay,  sur- 
rounded by  splendid  trees  whose  shade  is 
so  dense  as  to  be  impenetrable  to  the  noon- 
day sun,  is  a  study  for  an  artist.  And  as 
I  gazed  in  a  sort  of  day-dream  at  the  ruins 
of  what  once  was  one  of  the  liveliest  camps 
in  the  Sierras — ^with  four  faro  tables  run- 
ning day  and  night — the  pines  seemed  to 
whisper  a  sigh  of  regret  over  its  departed 
glories.  Jackass  Hill  is  fairly  honey- 
combed with  prospect  holes,  shafts  and 
tunnels.  I  was  surprised  to  see  that  even 
now  there  is  a  certain  amount  of  prospect 
work  going  forward,  for  I  noticed  several 
shafts  with  windlasses  to  which  ropes  were 
attached;  and,  in  fact,  was  told  that  the 
old  camp  showed  signs  of  a  new  lease  of 
life. 

Musing  on  Tuttletown  and  its  environ- 
ment later  on  got  me  into  serious  difficulty. 
Having  crossed  the  Stanislaus  River  and 
cleared  the  canon,  I  abandoned  the  main 
road  for  an  alleged  ' '  cut-off. ' '  This  I  was 
following  with  the  utmost  confidence,  when, 
to  my  surprise,  it  came  to  an  abrupt  end 
at  the  foot  of  a  steep  hill.    In  the  ravine 

20 


TUOLUMNE  TO  PLACERVILLE 

below  was  a  house,  and  there  fortunately 
I  found  a  man  of  whom  I  inquired  if  I 
was  in  '^Carson  Flat."  '' Carson  Flat? 
Well,  I  should  say  not!  You're  Vay  off!" 
^'How  much?"  I  asked  feebly.  "Oh,  sev- 
eral miles."  This  in  a  tone  that  implied 
that  though  I  was  in  a  bad  fix,  it  might 
possibly  be  worse.  However,  with  the  in- 
variable kindness  of  these  people,  he  put 
me  on  a  trail  which,  winding  up  to  the  sum- 
mit of  a  ridge,  struck  down  into  Carson 
Flat  and  joined  the  main  road.  And  there 
I  registered  a  vow:  "The  hard  highway 
for  me ! "  As  a  consequence  of  this  devia- 
tion, I  materially  lengthened  the  distance 
to  AngePs.  It  is  thirty  miles  from  Tuol- 
umne by  the  road,  to  which,  by  taking  the 
* '  cut-off, ' '  I  probably  added  another  three ! 
It  is  surprising  how  these  towns  grow 
upon  one.  Already  the  AngePs  Hotel 
seemed  like  home  to  me  and  after  an  ex- 
cellent dinner,  I  joined  the  loungers  on  the 
sidewalk  and  became  one  of  a  row,  seated 
on  chairs  tilted  at  various  angles  against 
the  wall  of  the  hotel.  And  there  I  dozed, 
watching  the  passing  show  between 
dreams;  for  in  the  evening  when  the  elec- 
tric lights  are  on,  there  is  a  sort  of  parade 
of  the  youth  and  beauty  of  the  town,  up 
and  down  the  winding  street. 

21 


A  TBAMP  THEOUGH  THE  BEET  HAETE  COUNTEY 

On  account  of  the  great  heat  that  even 
the  dry  purity  of  the  Sierra  atmosphere 
could  not  altogether  mitigate,  I  decided 
the  next  day  to  be  content  with  reaching 
San  Andreas,  the  county  seat  of  Calaveras 
County,  fifteen  miles  north  of  Angel's. 

Apart  from  its  name,  there  is  something 
about  San  Andreas  that  suggests  Mexico, 
or  one's  idea  of  pastoral  California  in  the 
early  days  of  the  American  occupation. 
The  streets  are  narrow  and  unpaved  and 
during  the  midday  heat  are  almost  de- 
serted. Business  of  some  sort  there  must 
be,  for  the  little  town,  though  somnolent, 
is  evidently  holding  its  own;  but  there 
seems  to  be  infinite  time  in  which  to  ac- 
complish whatever  the  necessities  of  life 
demand.  And  I  may  state  here  paren- 
thetically, that  perhaps  the  most  impres- 
sive feature  of  all  the  old  California  mining 
towns  is  their  suggestion  of  calm  repose. 
Each  little  community  seems  sufficient  unto 
itself  and  entirely  satisfied  with  things  as 
they  are.  Not  even  in  the  Old  World  will 
you  find  places  where  the  current  of  life 
more  placidly  flows. 

On  the  main  street — and  the  principal 
street  of  all  these  towns  is  "Main  Street'' 
— I  had  the  good  fortune  to  be  introduced 
to  Judge  Ira  H.  Reed,  who  came  to  Cala- 

22 


TUOLUMNE  TO  PLACERVILLE 

veras  County  in  1854,  and  has  lived  there 
ever  since.  He  told  me  that  Judge  Gott- 
schalk,  who  died  a  few  years  ago  at  an  ad- 
vanced age,  was  authority  for  the  state- 
ment that  Mark  Twain  got  his  ^*  Jumping 
Frog'^  story  from  the  then  proprietor  of 
the  Metropolitan  Hotel,  San  Andreas,  who 
asserted  that  the  incident  actually  oc- 
curred in  his  bar-room.  Twain,  it  is  true, 
places  the  scene  in  a  bar-room  at  Angel's, 
but  that  is  doubtless  the  author's  license. 
Bret  Harte  calls  Tuttletown, '  ^  Tuttleville, " 
and  there  never  was  a  ^^Wingdam"  stage. 
That  evening  as  I  lay  awake  in  my  bed- 
room at  the  Metropolitan  Hotel,  wonder- 
ing by  what  person  of  note  it  had  been  oc- 
cupied in  the  ^'good  old  days,"  my  atten- 
tion was  attracted  to  the  musical  tinkle  of 
a  cow-bell.  Looking  out  of  the  window, 
I  beheld  the  strange  spectacle  of  a  cow 
walking  sedately  down  the  middle  of  the 
street.  No  one  was  driving  her,  no  one 
paid  her  any  attention  beyond  a  casual 
glance,  as  she  passed.  The  cow,  in  fact,  had 
simply  come  home,  after  a  day  in  the  open 
country;  and  it  became  plain  to  me  that 
this  was  a  nightly  occurrence  and  there- 
fore caused  no  comment.  Unmolested,  she 
passed  the  hotel  and  on  down  the  street  to 
the  foot  of  the  hill,  where  she  evidently 

23 


A  TKAMP  THROUGH  THE  BRET  HARTE  COUNTRY 

spent  the  night;  for  the  tinkle  of  the  bell 
became  permanent  and  blended  with  and 
became  a  part  of  the  subtle,  mysterious 
sounds  that  constitute  Nature's  sleeping 
breath. 

This  little  incident  in  the  county  seat 
of  Calaveras  County  impressed  me  as  an 
epitome  of  the  changes  wrought  by  time, 
since  the  days  when  in  song  and  story  Bret 
Harte  made  the  name  '  ^  Calaveras ' '  a  syno- 
nym for  romance  wherever  the  English  lan- 
guage is  spoken. 

From  San  Andreas  my  objective  point 
was  Placerville,  distant  about  forty-five 
miles.  The  heat  still  being  excessive,  I 
made  the  town  by  easy  stages,  arriving  at 
noon  on  the  third  day.  Mokelumne  Hill, 
ten  miles  beyond  San  Andreas,  also  lends 
its  name  to  the  little  town  which  clusters 
around  its  apex  and  is  at  the  head  of  Chili 
Gulch,  a  once  famous  bonanza  for  the 
placer  miners.  For  miles  the  road  winds 
up  the  gulch,  which  is  almost  devoid  of 
timber,  amid  piled-up  rocks  and  debris, 
bleached  and  blistered  by  the  sun's  fierce 
rays;  the  gulch  itself  being  literally 
stripped  to  ^ '  bedrock. ' '  I  had  already  wit- 
nessed many  evidences  of  man's  eager  pur- 
suit of  the  precious  metal,  but  nothing  that 
so  conveyed  the  idea  of  the  feverish,  per- 

24 


TUOLUMNE  TO  PLACERVILLE 

sistent  energy  with  which  those  adventur- 
ers in  the  new  El  Dorado  had  struggled 
day  and  night  with  Nature's  obstacles, 
spurred  on  by  the  auri  sacra  fames, 

A  little  incident  served  to  relieve  the 
monotony  of  the  climb  up  Chili  Gulch.  A 
miner,  who  might  have  sat  for  a  study  of 
*^ Tennessee's  Partner,''  came  down  the 
hillside  with  a  pan  of  ^^dirt,"  which  he 
carefully  washed  in  a  muddy  pool  in  the 
bed  of  the  gulch.  He  showed  me  the  result, 
a  few  ^^ colors"  and  sulphurets.  He  said 
it  would  ^  ^  go  about  ^ve  dollars  to  the  ton, ' ' 
and  seemed  well  satisfied  with  the  result. 
I  shall  always  hold  him  in  grateful  mem- 
ory, for  he  took  me  to  an  old  tunnel,  and 
disappearing  for  a  few  moments,  returned 
with  a  large  dipper  of  ice-cold  water.  Not 
the  Children  of  Israel,  when  Aaron  smote 
the  rock  in  the  desert  and  produced  a  liv- 
ing stream,  could  have  lapped  that  water 
with  keener  enjoyment. 

The  terrific  heat  in  Chili  Gulch  made  the 
shade  from  the  trees  which  surround  Mo- 
kelumne  Hotel  doubly  grateful.  Mokelumne 
Hill  is,  in  fact,  a  mountain,  and  commands 
a  view  of  rare  beauty.  At  its  base  winds 
the  wooded  canon  of  the  Mokelumne  River, 
on  the  farther  side  of  which  rises  the  Jack- 
son Butte,  an  isolated  peak  with  an  eleva- 

25 


A  TEAMP  THKOUGH  THE  BEET  HAETE  COUNTEY 

tion  of  over  three  thousand  feet,  while  in 
the  background  loom  the  omnipresent  peaks 
of  the  far  Sierra. 

The  Mokelumne  Hotel  is  regarded  as 
modern,  dating  back  merely  to  1868,  at 
which  time  the  original  building  was  de- 
stroyed by  fire.  The  present  structure  of 
solid  blocks  of  stone,  should  resist  the  ele- 
ments for  centuries  to  come.  I  was  sur- 
prised at  the  excellent  accommodations  of 
this  hotel.  In  what  seemed  such  an  out-of- 
the-way  and  inaccessible  locality,  I  was 
served  with  one  of  the  best  meals  on 
the  whole  journey,  including  claret  with 
crushed  ice  in  a  champagne  glass!  What 
that  meant  to  a  tramp  who  had  struggled 
for  miles  through  quartz  rock  and  impal- 
pable dust,  up  a  heavy  grade,  without 
shade  and  the  thermometer  well  past  the 
hundred  mark,  only  a  tramp  can  appreci- 
ate. I  fell  in  love  with  Mokelumne  Hill 
and,  after  due  consultation  of  my  map,  re- 
solved to  pass  the  night  in  this  pictur- 
esque and  delightful  spot.  I  was  also 
influenced  by  its  associations,  as  it  figures 
prominently  in  Bret  Harte's  stories. 

Of  the  four  famous  rivers — the  Stanis- 
laus, Mokelumne,  American  and  Cosumnes 
— which  I  crossed  on  this  trip,  the  Mo- 
kelumne appealed  to  me  the  most.    What- 

26 


^      ^  5"  ^      ^ 


=    >  =    o    f^ 


ft  h'  ;;;  ^  T 


TUOLUMNE  TO  PLACERVILLE 

ever  the  meaning  of  the  Indian  name,  one 
may  rest  assured  it  stands  for  some  form 
of  beauty.  Jackson,  the  county  seat  of 
Amador  County,  is  but  six  miles  from  Mo- 
kelumne  Hill  and  a  town  of  considerable 
importance,  being  the  terminus  of  a  branch 
line  of  the  Southern  Pacific  Eailway.  It 
is  situated  in  an  open  country  where  the 
hills  are  at  some  distance,  and  presents  a 
certain  up-to-date  appearance.  About  a 
mile  from  Jackson  the  Kennedy  mine,  run- 
ning a  hundred  stamps,  is  one  of  the  great- 
est gold  producers  in  the  State. 

Sutter  Creek,  erroneously  supposed  by 
many  to  be  the  spot  where  gold  was  first 
discovered  in  California,  four  miles  north 
of  Jackson,  is  picturesque  and  rendered  at- 
tractive by  reason  of  the  vivid  green  of 
the  lawns  surrounding  the  little  cottages  on 
its  outskirts.  This  town,  too,  has  a  flour- 
ishing look,  accounted  for  by  the  operation 
of  the  South  Eureka  and  Central  Eureka 
mines.  A  gentleman  whom  I  met  on  the 
street  imparted  this  information,  and 
asked  me  if  I  remembered  Mark  Twain's 
definition  of  a  gold  mine.  I  had  to  con- 
fess I  did  not.  "Well,''  said  he,  "Mark 
Twain  defined  a  gold  mine  as  ^  a  hole  in  the 
ground  at  one  end,  and  a  d — d  fool  at  the 
other!'  "    The  appreciative  twinkle  in  his 

27 


A  TRAMP  THROUGH  THE  BRET  HARTE  COUNTRY 

eye  suggested  the  possibility  that  this 
definition  met  with  his  approval. 

Amador,  two  miles  beyond  Sutter  Creek, 
did  not  appeal  to  me.  '  ^  Stagnation  ^ '  would 
probably  come  nearer  than  any  other  term 
to  convejdng  to  the  mind  of  a  person  un- 
familiar with  Amador  its  present  condi- 
tion. One  becomes  acutely  sensitive  to  the 
"atmosphere''  of  these  places,  after  a  few 
days  upon  the  road,  for  each  has  a  dis- 
tinctive individuality.  In  spite  of  the  fact 
that  it  was  mid-daj  in  mi^-summer,  gloom 
seemed  to  pervade  the  streets  and  to  be 
characteristic  of  its  inhabitants.  With  the 
exception  of  an  attempt  to  get  into  tele- 
phonic communication  with  a  friend  at 
Placerville,  I  lost  not  a  moment  in  the 
town. 

On  reaching  Drytown,  three  miles  north 
of  Amador,  I  noted  the  thermometer  stood 
at  110  degrees  in  the  shade  on  the  watered 
porch  of  the  hotel,  and  deciding  there  was 
a  certain  risk  attendant  on  walking  in  such 
heat,  determined  to  make  the  best  of  what 
was  anytliing  but  a  pleasant  situation,  and 
go  no  farther.  Drytown,  in  the  modern  ap- 
plication of  the  first  syllable,  is  a  misnomer, 
the  "town"  consisting  chiefly  of  the  hotel 
with  accompanying  bar,  and  a  saloon  across 
the  way! 

28 


TUOLUMNE  TO  PLACERVILLE 

Dr5i;own  was  in  existence  as  early  as 
1849,  and  was  visited  in  October  of  that 
year  by  Bayard  Taylor.  He  says:  ^*I 
found  a  population  of  from  two  to  three 
hundred,  established  for  the  winter.  The 
village  was  laid  out  with  some  regularity 
and  had  taverns,  stores,  butchers'  shops 
and  monte  tables. '^  One  cannot  but  smile 
at  the  idea  of  "monte  tables''  in  connec- 
tion with  the  Drytown  of  to-day;  pitiful 
as  is  the  reflection  that  men  had  braved 
the  hardships  of  the  desert  and  toiled  to 
the  waist  in  water  for  gold,  only  to  throw 
it  recklessly  in  the  laps  of  professional 
gamblers. 

The  Exchange  Hotel,  a  wooden  build- 
ing dating  back  to  1858,  stands  on  the  site 
of  the  original  hotel,  built  in  1851  and 
burned  in  1857.  Upon  the  front  porch  is 
a  well  furnishing  cold,  pure  water.  I  found 
this  to  be  the  most  acceptable  feature  of 
several  of  the  old  hostelries.  The  well  and 
the  swinging  sign  over  the  entrance  sug- 
gested the  wayside  inn  of  rural  England; 
more  especially  as  the  surrounding  country 
carries  out  the  idea,  being  gently  undu- 
lating and  well  timbered. 

The  following  evening  I  put  up  at  Nash- 
ville, on  the  North  Fork  of  the  Cosumnes 
River  and  well  over  the  borders  of  El  Do- 

29 


A  TBAMP  THKOUGH  THE  BEET  HAKTE  COUNTBY 

rado  county,  passing  Plymouth  en  route. 
Plymouth,  on  the  map,  appeared  to  be  a 
place  of  some  importance,  but  a  closer  in- 
spection proved  that — in  spite  of  its  breezy 
name — it  would  take  the  spirits  of  a  Mark 
Tapley  to  withstand  its  discouraging  sur- 
roundings. Plymouth  is  ^  ^  living  in  hopes,  * ' 
an  English  syndicate  having  an  option  on 
certain  mining  properties  in  the  vicinity; 
but  Nashville  is  frankly  ^^out  of  business. '^ 

At  Nashville,  in  fact,  I  had  some  diffi- 
culty in  securing  ^ '  bed  and  lodging. ' '  There 
appeared  to  be  only  three  families  in  this 
once  flourishing  camp.  Strange  as  it  may 
seem,  money  appears  to  be  no  object  to 
people  in  these  sequestered  places.  You 
have  **to  make  good,''  and  in  this  instance 
it  required  not  a  little  tact  and  diplomacy. 

I  arrived  at  Placerville  the  following 
day.  Due  to  taking  a  road  not  shown  on 
my  map,  I  went  several  miles  astray  and 
for  some  few  hours  was  immersed  in  wild, 
chaparral-covered  mountains,  with  evi- 
dences on  all  hands  of  deserted  mines; 
finally  crossing  a  divide  at  an  elevation  of 
two  thousand  feet  and  descending  into  the 
valley  where  slumbers  the  little  town  of 
El  Dorado,  formerly  bearing  the  less  at- 
tractive designation  ' '  Mud  Springs. ' '  This 
title,  though  lacking  in  euphony,  was  more 

30 


TUOLUMNE  TO  PLACEKVILLE 

in  keeping  with  actual  conditions,  since  the 
valley  is  noted  for  its  springs,  and  Dia- 
mond Springs,  a  mile  or  two  north,  is  quite 
a  summer  resort.  Nor  is  there  any  indica- 
tion of  the  precious  metal  anywhere  in  the 
immediate  vicinity. 

In  Placerville — known  as  ^^Hangtown'^ 
in  the  Bret  Harte  days — I  registered  at 
the  Gary  House,  which  once  had  the  honor 
of  entertaining  no  less  a  personage  than 
Horace  Greeley.  It  was  here  he  termin- 
ated his  celebrated  stage  ride  with  Hank 
Monk.  I  found  that  my  friend  Harold  Ed- 
ward Smith  had  gone  to  Coloma,  eight 
miles  on  the  road  to  Auburn,  and  had  left 
a  note  saying  he  would  wait  for  me  there 
the  following  morning. 


31 


CHAPTER  IV 

J.  H.  BRADLEY  AND  THE  CARY 

HOUSE.  RUINS  OF  COLOMA. 

JAMES  W.  MARSHALL  AND 

HIS  PATHETIC  END 

MOEE  than  any  other  town, 
Placerville  gave  a  suggestion 
of  the  olden  times.  ''John 
Oakhurst''  and  ''Jack  Ham- 
lin" would  still  be  in  their  element,  as 
witness  the  following  scene: 

In  the  card  room  back  of  the  bar,  in  a 
certain  hotel,  a  "little  game"  was  in  prog- 
ress. A  big,  blond  giant,  with  curly  hair 
and  clean-cut  features — indeed  he  could 
have  posed  as  a  model  for  Praxiteles — 
arose  nonchalantly  from  the  table  as  I  en- 
tered, and  swept  the  stakes  into  a  capacious 
pocket.  An  angry  murmur  of  disapproval 
came  from  the  sitters,  and  one  man  mut- 
tered something  about  "quitting  the  game 
a  winner."  With  a  hand  on  each  hip,  the 
giant  swept  the  disgruntled  upturned  faces 
with  a  comprehensive  glance,  and  drawled : 
"I'll  admit  there's  something  wrong  in 
mine,  gentlemen,  or  I  wouldn't  be  here, 
see?"    He  waited  a  moment  and  amid  dead 

32 


J.  H.  BEADLE Y  AND  THE  CAEY  HOUSE 

silence  passed  slowly  through  the  bar- 
room to  the  sidewalk,  seated  himself, 
stretched  his  long  legs  and  placidly  gazed 
across  the  street. 

In  the  morning  I  had  a  long  talk  with 
Mr.  J.  H.  Bradley,  perhaps  the  best  known 
man  in  El  Dorado  County.  Though  in  his 
eighty-fourth  year,  his  keen  brown  eyes 
still  retain  the  fire  and  light  of  youth.  The 
vitality  of  these  old  pioneers  is  something 
marvelous.  Mr.  Bradley  was  born  in  Ken- 
tucky, but,  as  a  boy,  moved  to  Hannibal, 
Missouri,  where  he  played  marbles  with 
Mark  Twain,  or  Clemens,  as  he  prefers  to 
call  him.  In  '49,  he  came  across  the  plains 
to  California.  He  was  on  the  most  friendly 
terms  with  Twain  and  said  he  assisted  him 
to  learn  piloting  on  the  Mississippi;  and 
when  Twain  came  to  California,  helped  him 
to  get  a  position  as  compositor  with  U.  E. 
Hicks,  who  founded  the  Sacramento  Union. 
He  also  knew  Horace  Greeley  intimately, 
and  has  a  portfolio  that  once  was  his  prop- 
erty. Five  years  after  Greeley's  arrival 
in  Placerville,  which  was  in  1859,  Mr.  Brad- 
ley married  Caroline  Hicks,  who  with 
Phoebe  and  Rose  Carey  had  acted  as  sec- 
retary to  Mr.  Greeley.  Mr.  Bradley  takes 
no  stock  in  the  ^'keep  your  seat,  Horace!" 
story.     He  considers  it  a  fabrication.     In 

33 


A  TRAMP  THROUGH  THE  BRET  HARTE  COUNTRY 

his  opinion,  the  romancers — Bret  Harte, 
Mark  Twain,  et  al. — have  done  California 
more  harm  than  good.  He  also  has  a  thinly 
disguised  contempt  for  ^'newspaper  fel- 
lows and  magazine  writers."  Nor  does 
he  believe  in  the  "Mother  Lode" — that  is, 
in  its  continuity — in  spite  of  the  geologists. 
He  prefers  to  speak  of  the  '^ mineral  zone.'' 
In  fine,  Mr.  Bradley  is  a  man  of  definite 
and  iDronounced  opinions  on  any  subject 
you  may  broach.  For  that  reason,  his 
views,  whether  you  agree  with  them  or  not, 
are  always  of  interest. 

Hanging  in  the  office  of  the  Gary  House 
is  a  clever  cartoon,  by  William  Cooper,  of 
Portland,  Oregon,  entitled  "A  mining  con- 
vention in  Placerville ; "  in  which  Mr.  Brad- 
ley is  depicted  in  earnest  conversation  with 
a  second  Mr.  Bradley,  a  third  and  evidently 
remonstrant  Mr.  Bradley  intervening, 
while  a  fourth  and  fifth  Mr.  Bradley,  de- 
cidedly bored,  are  hurriedly  departing. 

Indeed,  one  glance  at  Mr.  Bradley  is 
enough  to  convince  you  that  he  is  a  man  of 
unusual  force  of  character.  No  one  intro- 
duced me  to  him.  I  was  merely  informed  at 
the  Cary  House  that  he  was  the  person  to 
whom  I  should  apply  for  information  con- 
cerning the  old  times.  I  accordingly 
started  out  to  look  for  him  and  had  not 

34 


J.  H.  BKADLEY  AND  THE  CAKY  HOUSE 

proceeded  fifty  yards  when  a  man,  ap- 
proaching at  a  distance,  arrested  my  atten- 
tion. As  he  drew  nearer,  I  felt  positive 
there  could  be  only  one  such  personage  in 
Placerville,  and  when  he  was  opposite  me, 
I  stopped  and  said,  '^How  are  you,  Mr. 
Bradley?''  ^^ That's  my  name,  sir;  what 
do  you  want?"  he  replied. 

They  take  life  easily  in  the  old  mining 
towns.  No  wonder  the  spectacle  of  a  man 
with  a  pack  on  his  back  caused  comment, 
in  that  heat,  tramping  two  or  three  hundred 
miles  for  pleasure!  Beyond  the  trivial 
necessities  that  bare  existence  makes  im- 
perative, I  was  not  conscious  of  seeing 
anyone  do  anything  on  the  whole  trip. 
Old  miners  not  unnaturally  took  me  for  a 
prospector,  and  I  think  I  never  quite  suc- 
ceeded in  convincing  them  to  the  contrary. 

In  Placerville  as  in  Angel's  Camp,  the 
evening  promenade  seems  the  most  im- 
portant event  of  the  day.  Young  men  and 
maidens  pass  and  repass  in  an  apparently 
endless  chain.  The  same  faces  recur  so 
frequently  that  one  begins  to  take  an  in- 
terest in  the  little  comedy  and  speculate 
on  the  rival  attractions  of  blonde  and 
brunette,  and  wonder  which  of  the  young 
bloods  is  the  local  Beau  Brummel.  The 
audience — so     to     speak — sit     on     chairs 

35 


A  TRAMP  THROUGH  THE  BRET  HARTE  COUNTRY 

backed  against  the  walls  of  the  hotels  and 
stores,  while  many  prefer  the  street  itself, 
and  with  feet  on  curb  or  other  coign  of 
vantage,  tilt  their  chairs  at  most  alarming 
angles.  A  sort  of  animated  lovers'  lane  is 
thus  formed,  through  which  the  prom- 
enaders  have  to  run  the  gauntlet,  and  are 
subjected  to  a  certain  amount  of  criticism. 
Everyone  knows  everyone.  Good  natured 
badinage  plays  like  wild-fire,  up  and  down 
and  across  the  street.  Later  on,  the  tinkle 
of  mandolin  and  guitar  is  heard  far  into 
the  night  watches. 

Having  determined  to  reach  Auburn — 
thirty  miles  away — the  next  day,  I  made  an 
early  start.  Coloma  lies  at  the  bottom  of 
the  great  caiion  of  the  South  Fork  of  the 
American  Eiver.  Hastening  down  the 
grade,  in  a  bend  of  the  road  I  almost  ran 
into  my  friend.  It  seemed  a  strange  meet- 
ing this,  in  the  heart  of  the  old  mining 
country,  and  I  think  we  both  gave  a  per- 
ceptible start. 

It  was  at  Coloma  that  gold  was  first  dis- 
covered in  California,  by  James  W.  Mar- 
shall, January  19,  1848.  My  companion 
had  been  so  fortunate  on  the  previous  day 
as  to  meet  Mr.  W.  H.  Hooper,  who  arrived 
in  Coloma  August  8,  1850,  and  who  has 
lived  there  practically  ever  since.    Though 

36 


J.  H.  BRADLEY  AND  THE  CAEY  HOUSE 

eighty-three,  he  is  still  strong  and  vigor- 
ous. From  him  my  friend  elicited  some 
very  interesting  information  in  regard  to 
Marshall  especially,  the  substance  of  which 
I  append  from  his  notes.  Mr.  Hooper  had 
known  Marshall  for  many  years,  and  his 
reminiscences  of  the  discoverer  have  a 
touch  of  pathos  bordering  on  the  tragic. 

Marshall,  a  trapper  by  trade  and  fron- 
tiersman by  inclination,  accompanied  Gen- 
eral Sutter  to  California,  assisted  in  the 
building  of  Sutter  Fort  and,  on  account 
of  his  mechanical  ability,  was  sent  to 
Coloma  to  superintend  the  erection  of  a 
sawmill.  It  was  in  the  mill-race  that  he 
picked  up  the  nugget  which  made  the  name 
'' California '^  the  magnet  for  the  world's 
adventurers.  Unaware  of  the  nature  of 
his  '^find,''  he  took  it  to  Sacramento,  where 
it  was  declared  to  be  gold.  He  was  im- 
plored by  General  Sutter  to  keep  the  mill 
operatives  in  ignorance  of  his  discovery, 
for  fear  they  should  desert  their  work. 
But  how  could  such  a  secret  be  kept, 
especially  by  a  man  of  generous  and  im- 
pulsive instincts?  At  any  rate  the  news 
leaked  out  and  the  stampede  followed. 

From  Mr.  Hooper's  account,  Marshall 
was  a  very  human  character.  Late  in  life 
the  state  legislature  granted  him  a  pension 

37 


A  TRAMP  THROUGH  THE  BRET  HARTE  COUNTRY 

of  two  hundred  dollars  per  month.  This 
sum  being  far  in  excess  of  his  actual  needs, 
it  followed  as  a  matter  of  course  that  his 
cronies  assisted  him  in  disposing  of  it.  In 
fact,  ^'Marshall's  pension  day''  became  a 
local  attraction,  and  the  Coloma  saloon — 
still  in  existence — the  rendezvous.  These 
reunions  were  varied  by  glorious  excur- 
sions to  Sacramento,  his  friends  in  the 
legislature  imploring  him  to  keep  away. 
After  two  years  the  pension  was  cut  down 
to  one  hundred  dollars  per  month  and 
finally  was  discontinued  in  toto — a  shabby 
and  most  undignified  procedure.  Opposite 
the  saloon,  at  some  little  distance,  is  a 
conical  hill.  For  many  years  Marshall, 
seated  on  the  steps  of  the  porch,  had  gazed 
dreamily  at  its  summit.  Shortly  before 
his  death,  addressing  a  renmant  of  the  "old 
guard,"  he  exclaimed:  "Boys,  when  I  go, 
I  want  you  to  plant  me  on  the  top  of  that 
hill."  And  "planted"  he  was,  with  a  ten- 
thousand-dollar  monument  on  top  of  him  I 
The  poor  old  fellow  died  in  poverty  at 
Kelsey,  near  Coloma,  August  10,  1885,  at 
the  age  of  seventy-five.  It  is  a  sad  reflec- 
tion that  a  tithe  of  the  money  spent  on 
the  monument  would  have  comforted  him 
in  his  latter  days ;  for  the  blow  to  his  pride 
by  the  withdrawal  of  his  pension,  still  more 

38 


?0 

:» 

:d      <  ^ 

>  5 

d 

^^^  g" 

X* 

—  "3                  ^ 

o    =r  i-( 

z*"- 

'D 

p"  <  ?  5    o 

For 
ricar 

■^ 

i 

K   ^  O)   —'3 

--   pr  n 

E. 

^?5  ^  3  ?= 

So  < 

— ' 

the 
recii 
re 
irst 

o 

fB 

J.  H.  BKADLEY  AND  THE  CABY  HOUSE 

than  the  actual  lack  of  funds,  hastened 
the  end. 

Mr.  Hooper  intimated  that  the  popula- 
tion of  Coloma  diminished  perceptibly 
after  the  termination  of  MarshalPs  pen- 
sion. In  common  with  the  majority  of  the 
old  miners,  he  saved  nothing  and  never 
profited  to  any  extent  by  the  discovery  that 
will  keep  his  memory  alive  for  centuries 
to  come. 

Coloma  in  its  palmy  days  had  a  popu- 
lation variously  estimated  at  from  five  to 
ten  thousand  souls,  with  the  usual  accom- 
paniment of  saloons,  dance  halls  and  faro 
banks.  There  was  a  vigorous  expulsion 
of  gamblers  in  the  early  fifties  and  an 
incident  occurred  which  quite  possibly  sup- 
plied the  inspiration  for  Bret  Harte's 
^^ Outcasts  of  Poker  Flat."  A  notorious 
gambler  and  desperado,  and  his  accom- 
plice, demurred.  Whereupon  the  irate 
miners  placed  them  on  a  burro,  and  with 
vigorous  threats  punctuated  by  a  salvo  of 
revolver  shots  fired  over  their  heads,  drove 
them  out  of  camp.  They  disappeared  over 
the  hill  upon  which  the  monument  now 
stands,  and  were  seen  no  more. 

Coloma  suffered  severely  from  fires. 
Little  of  the  old  town  remains  but  ruins  of 
stone  walls,  and  here  and  there  an  isolated 

39 


A  TRAMP  THEOUGH  THE  BRET  HARTE  COUNTRY 

wooden  building.  The  ruins,  however,  are 
not  only  exceedingly  picturesque,  being  half 
buried  in  foilage  of  beautiful  trees,  but 
hold  the  imagination  with  a  grip  that  is 
indescribable.  I  could  willingly  have  tar- 
ried here  for  days. 

But  while  old  Coloma  is  dead,  there  is 
a  new  Coloma  that  furnishes  an  extra- 
ordinary contrast.  It  is  a  sweet  and 
peaceful  little  hamlet,  situated  on  the  lower 
benches  of  the  canon,  well  up  out  of  the 
river  bottom,  and  is  entirely  devoted  to 
horticulture.  One  has  read  of  birds  build- 
ing their  nests  in  the  muzzles  of  old  and 
disused  cannon ;  even  that  does  not  suggest 
a  more  anomalous  association  of  ideas  than 
the  spectacle  of  a  vine-clad  cottage  shaded 
by  fig  trees,  basking  peacefully  in  the  sun, 
so  close  to  what  was  at  one  time  a  veritable 
maelstrom  of  human  passions.  So  far  as 
the  new  Coloma  is  concerned,  Marshall's 
discovery  might  never  have  been  made. 
Nowhere  else  will  you  find  a  spot  where 
gold  and  what  it  stands  for  would  seem  to 
mean  so  little.  Coloma!  It  is  passing 
strange  that  a  name  so  sweet  and  restful 
should  forever  be  linked  with  the  wildest 
scramble  for  gold  the  world  has  ever  seen ! 


40 


CHAPTER  V 

AUBURN  TO  NEVADA  CITY  VIA 

COLFAX  AND  GRASS  VALLEY. 

BEN  TAYLOR  AND  HIS  HOME 

After  surmounting  the  canon  of  the 
/%  South  Fork  of  the  American 
/  ^  Eiver,  you  gradually  enter  a 
.JL  JIL.  more  open  country,  the  out- 
skirts of  the  great  deciduous  fruit  belt  in 
Placer  County,  which  supplies  New  York 
and  Chicago  with  choice  plums,  peaches 
and  pears.  About  three  miles  from  Au- 
burn, the  road  plunges  into  one  of  the 
deepest  canons  of  the  Sierras,  at  the  bot- 
tom of  which  the  Middle  and  North  Forks 
of  the  American  Eiver  unite.  Just  below 
the  junction,  the  river  is  spanned  by  a  long 
suspension  bridge.  Auburn  is  remarkably 
situated  in  that  one  sees  nothing  of  it  until 
the  rim  of  the  canon  is  reached,  at  least 
a  thousand  feet  above  the  river.  Thus 
there  are  no  outskirts  and  you  plunge  at 
once  into  the  business  streets,  passing  the 
station  of  the  Central  Pacific  Eailway, 
which  line  skirts  the  edge  of  the  canon  on 
a  heavy  grade. 

41 


A  TEAMP  THKOUGH  THE  BEET  HAETE  COUNTEY 

I  had  accomplished  a  good  thirty  miles, 
but  that  did  not  prevent  me  from  accom- 
panying my  friend  on  a  long  and  protracted 
hunt  for  comfortable  quarters  in  which  to 
eat  and  spend  the  night.  There  was  quite 
an  attractive  hotel  near  the  railroad,  but 
actuated  by  a  desire  to  see  something  of 
the  town,  which  we  found  to  be  more  than 
usually  drawn  out,  we  passed  it  with  linger- 
ing regret.  Whether  by  chance  or  instinct, 
we  drifted  to  the  ruins  of  the  old  hotel, 
now  in  process  of  reconstruction,  and  were 
comfortabh^  housed  in  a  wooden  annex. 

Auburn  marks  the  western  verge  of  the 
mineral  zone,  but  in  the  fifties  there  were 
rich  placer  diggings  in  the  immediate  vi- 
cinity. There  are  some  remarkably  solid 
buildings  of  that  period,  in  the  old  por- 
tion of  the  town,  which,  as  customary,  is 
situated  in  the  bottom  of  the  winding  valley 
or  ravine.  Practically  a  new  town,  called 
' '  East  Auburn, ' '  has  been  started  on  higher 
ground,  and  a  fight  is  on  to  move  the  post 
office;  but  the  people  in  the  hollow  having 
the  voting  strength,  hang  on  to  it  like  grim 
death.  Along  the  edge  of  the  American 
Eiver  canon  and  commanding  a  magnifi- 
cent view,  are  the  homes  of  the  local 
aristocracy.  In  christening  Auburn,  it  is 
scarcely  credible  that  the  pioneers  had  in 

42 


AUBUKN  TO  NEVADA  CITY 

mind  Goldsmith's  ^^ loveliest  village  of  the 
plain;''  nor,  keeping  the  old  town  in  view, 
is  the  title  remarkably  applicable  today. 

Our  next  objective  point  being  Colfax, 
distant  in  a  northeasterly  direction  only 
fifteen  miles,  we  made  a  leisurely  inspec- 
tion of  the  town  and  vicinity  in  the 
morning.  The  old  town  proved  of  absorb- 
ing interest  to  my  friend,  and  we  became 
separated  while  he  was  hunting  up  subjects 
for  the  camera.  Having  a  free  and  easy 
working  scheme  in  such  matters,  after  a 
few  minutes'  search,  I  gave  up  the  quest 
and  started  alone  on  the  road  to  Colfax. 

A  few  miles  out,  I  met  a  man  with  a 
rifle  on  his  shoulder,  leading  a  burro  bear- 
ing a  pack-saddle  laden  in  the  most  scien- 
tific manner  with  probably  all  his  worldly 
possessions,  the  pick  and  shovel  plainly 
denoting  a  prospector.  A  water  bucket 
on  one  side  of  the  animal  was  so  adjusted 
that  the  bottom  was  uppermost ;  on  the  top 
of  the  bucket  sat  a  little  fox-terrier,  his 
eyes  fixed  steadfastly  on  his  master.  I 
paused  a  moment,  possessed  with  a  strong 
desire  to  take  a  snap  shot  of  this  remark- 
able equipment,  but  the  man  with  the  gun 
gave  me  a  glance  that  settled  the  matter. 
His  was  not  a  bad  face — far  from  it — but 
the  features  were  stern  and  set,  the  cheeks 

43 


A  TEAMP  THROUGH  THE  BRET  HAETE  COUNTRY 

furrowed  with  deep  lines  that  bespoke 
hardship  and  fatigue  in  the  struggle  with 
Nature  and  the  elements.  That  glance  out 
of  the  tail  of  his  eye  meant :  ^ '  Let  me  alone 
and  I  will  let  you  alone,  but  let  me  alone!" 

Taciturnity  becomes  habitual  to  men  ac- 
customed to  vast  solitudes.  Even  on  such 
a  tramp  as  I  had  undertaken,  in  which  I. 
frequently  walked  for  miles  without  sight 
or  sound  of  a  human  being,  I  began  to 
realize  how  banal  and  aimless  is  con- 
ventional conversation.  Under  such  con- 
ditions you  feel  yourself  in  sympathy 
with  the  man  who  says  nothing  unless  he 
has  something  to  say,  and  who,  in  turn, 
expects  the  same  restriction  of  speech 
from  you. 

I  was  seated  on  the  porch  of  the  store 
at  Applegate,  disposing  of  a  frugal  lunch 
consisting  of  raisins  and  crackers,  when 
my  friend  hove  in  sight.  After  a  private 
inspection  of  the  store's  possibilities,  with 
a  little  smile,  the  meaning  of  which  I  well 
understood  from  many  similar  experiences, 
he  sat  down  beside  me  and  without  a  word 
tackled  the  somewhat  uninviting  repast,  to 
which  with  a  wave  of  the  hand  I  invited 
him.  I  may  say  here  that  Mr.  Smith  is  a 
veteran  and  inveterate  ^^ hiker.''  I  doubt 
very  much  whether  any  man  in  California 

44 


AUBUBN  TO  NEVADA  CITY 

has  seen  as  much  of  this  magnificent  State 
as  he,  certainly  not  on  foot;  as  a  conse- 
quence he  is  accustomed  to  a  ready  accept- 
ance of  things  as  they  are.  Applegate, 
about  midway  between  Auburn  and  Colfax, 
is  an  alleged  '^summer  resort/'  It  did  not 
appeal  to  us  as  especially  attractive,  the 
view,  at  any  rate  from  the  road,  being 
extremely  limited  and  lacking  any  dis- 
tinctive features.  Without  unnecessary 
delay,  therefore,  we  resumed  the  march. 

It  is  practically  up-hill — ^^on  the  collar '' 
— all  the  way  to  Colfax,  as  is  plainly  evi- 
denced by  the  heavy  railroad  grade.  About 
a  mile  short  of  the  town,  we  made  a  di- 
gression to  an  Italian  vineyard  of  note. 
There,  at  a  long  table  under  a  vine-covered 
trellis  that  connected  the  stone  cellar  with 
the  dwelling-house,  we  were  served  with 
wine  by  a  young  woman  having  the  true 
Madonna  features  of  Sunny  Italy,  her 
mother,  a  comely  matron,  in  the  meantime 
preparing  the  evening  meal,  while  on  the 
hard  ground,  encumbered  with  no  super- 
fluous clothing,  disported  the  younger 
members  of  the  family.  And  as  I  sat  and 
smoked  the  pipe  of  peace,  I  reflected  upon 
how  much  better  they  do  these  things  in 
Italy — for  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  I 
was  in  Italy. 

45 


A  TKAMP  THROUGH  THE  BRET  HARTE  COUNTRY 

Colfax — before  the  advent  of  the  C.  P. 
R.  R.  called  ^'Illinois  Town" — is  an  odd 
blending  of  past  and  present;  the  solid 
structures  of  the  mining  days  contrasting 
strangely  with  the  flimsy  wooden  buildings 
that  seem  to  mark  a  railroad  town.  We 
were  amazed  at  the  amount  of  traffic  that 
occurs  in  the  night.  Three  big  overland 
trains  passed  through  in  either  direction, 
the  interim  being  filled  in  with  the  switch- 
ing of  cars,  accompanied  apparently  with 
a  most  unnecessary  ringing  of  bells  and 
piercing  shrieks  from  whistles.  Since  our 
hotel  was  not  more  than  a  hundred  and 
fifty  feet  from  the  main  line,  with  no  in- 
tervening buildings  to  temper  the  noises, 
sleep  of  any  consequence  was  an  utter  im- 
possibility. 

Few  Californians  are  aware,  probably, 
that  a  considerable  amount  of  tobacco  is 
raised  in  the  foot-hills  of  the  Sierras.  At 
Colfax,  I  smoked  a  very  fair  cigar  made 
from  tobacco  grown  in  the  vicinity,  and 
manufactured  in  the  town. 

I  think  we  were  both  glad  to  leave  Col- 
fax. Apart  from  a  nerve-racking  night, 
the  mere  proximity  of  the  railroad  with 
its  accompanying  associations  served  con- 
stantly to  bring  to  mind  all  that  I  had  fled 
to  the  mountains  to  escape.    Yet  I  cannot 

46 


AUBUEN  TO  NEVADA  CITY 

bring  myself  to  agree  with  those  who  pro- 
fess to  brand  a  railroad  ^'a  blot  on  the 
landscape. '^  The  enormous  engines  which 
pull  the  overland  trains  up  the  heavy 
grades  of  the  Sierra  Nevada  impress  one 
by  their  size,  strength  and  suggestion  of 
reserve  power,  as  not  being  out  of  harmony 
with  the  forces  of  Nature  they  are  con- 
structed to  contend  with  and  overcome. 

This  thought  occurred  to  us  as  we 
watched  a  passenger  train  slowly  winding 
its  way  around  the  famous  Cape  Horn, 
some  four  miles  from  Colfax.  Although 
several  miles  in  an  air  line  intervened,  one 
seemed  to  feel  the  vibrations  in  the  air 
caused  by  the  panting  monster,  while  great 
jets  of  steam  shot  up  above  the  pine  trees. 
I  confess  to  a  sense  of  elation  at  the  spec- 
tacle. Nature  in  some  of  her  moods  seems 
so  malignant,  that  I  felt  proud  of  this  mag- 
nificent exhibition  of  man^s  victory  over 
the  obstacles  she  so  well  knows  how  to 
interpose. 

The  road  between  Colfax  and  Grass 
Valley — the  next  stopping  place  on  our 
itinerary — lay  through  so  lovely  a  country 
that  we  passed  through  it  as  in  a  dream. 
Descending  into  the  valley  we  were  joined 
by  several  small  boys,  attracted,  I  suppose, 
by   our — to    them — unusual    costume    and 

47 


A  TBAMP  THROUGH  THE  BRET  HARTE  COUNTRY 

equipment,  who  plied  us  with  questions. 
They  asked  if  ^'we  carried  a  message  for 
the  mayor/'  and  were  visibly  disappointed 
when  we  regretted  we  had  overlooked  that 
formality.  For  several  minutes  they  kept 
us  busy  trying  to  give  truthful  answers  to 
most  unexpected  questions.  They  had 
never  heard  of  Tuolumne  and  wanted  to 
know  if  it  was  in  California.  Their  world, 
in  fact,  was  bounded  by  Colfax  on  the  south 
and  Nevada  City  on  the  north. 

Grass  Valley  received  its  name  from  the 
meadow  in  which  the  town,  for  the  most 
part,  is  situated.  The  ground  is  so  moist 
that,  notwithstanding  the  heat,  the  grass 
was  a  vivid  green.  Apple  trees  growing 
in  the  grass,  as  in  the  orchards  of  England 
and  in  the  Atlantic  States,  and  perfectly 
healthy,  conveyed  that  suggestion  of  the 
Old  World  which  lends  a  peculiar  charm  to 
these  towns.  And  Grass  Valley  really  is 
a  town,  having  seven  thousand  inhabitants ; 
and  is,  withal,  clean,  picturesque  and  alto- 
gether delightful.  One  understood  why 
*^  Tuolumne '^  sounded  meaningless  to  those 
small  boys.  Thus  early  in  life  they  were 
under  influences  which  will  probably  keep 
them  in  after  years — as  they  kept  their 
fathers — permanent  citizens  of  the  town 
of  Grass  Valley. 

48 


AUBUKN  TO  NEVADA  CITY 

Grass  Valley  was  one  of  the  richest  of 
the  old  mining  camps.  There  was  literally 
gold  everywhere,  even  in  the  very  roots 
of  the  grass.  The  mining  is  now  all  under- 
ground and  drifts  from  the  North  Star  and 
Ophir  mines  underlie  a  part  of  the  town. 

After  a  methodical  search,  we  discovered 
an  excellent  restaurant  and  made  a  note 
of  it  as  a  recurrent  possibility.  A  judicious 
choice  of  a  suitable  place  in  which  to  eat 
and  eke,  to  pass  the  night,  is  to  the  tramp 
a  matter  of  vital  interest.  Robert  Louis 
Stevenson,  in  those  entertaining  narratives 
^'An  Inland  Voyage"  and  "Travels  with 
a  Donkey,"  lays  heartfelt  stress  on  these 
particulars;  when  things  were  not  to  his 
liking,  roundly  denouncing  them,  but  if 
agreeably  surprised,  lifting  up  his  voice 
in  song  and  praise. 

Though  tempted  to  pass  the  night  in 
Grass  Valley,  impelled  by  curiosity,  we 
pushed  on  four  miles  farther,  to  Nevada 
City.  It  is  useless  to  attempt  to  convey 
in  words  the  fascination  of  Nevada  City. 
My  friend,  who  is  familiar  with  the  country, 
said  it  reminded  him  of  Italy.  Houses  rise 
one  above  the  other  on  the  hillside;  while 
down  below,  the  winding  streets  with  their 
quaint  old-time  stores  and  balconied  win- 
dows, are  equally  attractive.    The  horrors 

49 


A  TRAMP  THROUGH  THE  BRET  HARTE  COUNTRY 

of  the  previous  night  at  Colfax  made  the 
quiet  peacefulness  of  Nevada  City  the  more 
refreshing.  At  the  National  Hotel  I  en- 
joyed the  soundest  sleep  since  leaving 
home. 

In  the  morning  there  was  a  delicious 
breeze  from  the  mountains,  which  rendered 
strolling  about  the  town  a  pleasure.  Ac- 
cording to  custom,  we  went  our  several 
ways,  each  drawn  by  what  appealed  to  him 
the  most  at  the  moment.  When  ready  to 
depart,  finding  no  trace  of  my  companion 
at  the  hotel,  I  left  word  that  I  had  returned 
to  Grass  Valley;  where  an  hour  or  two 
later,  he  rejoined  me. 

More  fortunate  than  I,  my  friend  by 
chance  encountered  Mr.  Morrison  M. 
Green,  on  the  street  in  front  of  his  home 
upon  the  hill  which  looks  down  upon  the 
town.  This  gentleman,  who  is  in  his  eighty- 
third  year,  related  an  almost  incredible 
incident  in  connection  with  the  fire  in  1857, 
which  wiped  out  the  town,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  one  house.  Three  prominent  citi- 
zens who  chanced  to  have  met  in  a  saloon 
when  the  fire  broke  out,  having  the  utmost 
confidence  in  the  safety  of  a  certain  build- 
ing, on  account  of  its  massive  walls  arid 
iron  door,  made  a  vow  to  lock  themselves 
in  it,   and  actually  did  so.     They  might 

50 


PLATE  VI 

Hen  Taylor  and  His  Home,  Grass 

Valley,  Showing  the  Spruce  He  Planted 

Nearly  Half  a  Century  Ago 


AUBURN  TO  NEVADA  CITY 

perhaps  have  withstood  the  ordeal,  had  not 
the  roof  been  broken  in  by  the  fall  of  the 
walls  of  the  adjoining  building.  The  iron 
door  having  been  warped  with  the  heat, 
it  was  impossible  to  open  it ;  when  last  seen, 
they  were  standing  with  their  arms  around 
one  another  in  the  center  of  the  store. 

At  Grass  Valley,  my  friend — greatly  to 
my  regret  and  I  think  also  to  his  own — 
received  word  which  rendered  his  return 
to  San  Francisco  imperative.  After  a  fare- 
well dinner  at  the  restaurant  before  men- 
tioned, I  accompanied  him  to  the  railway 
station,  and  in  the  words  of  Christian  in 
^'The  Pilgrim's  Progress, ''  ^'I  saw  him  no 
more  in  my  dream. ' '  I  confess  to  a  feeling 
of  depression  after  his  departure,  for  how- 
ever enjoyable  the  experiences  of  the  road, 
they  are  rendered  doubly  so  by  the  sympa- 
thetic companionship  of  a  man  endowed 
not  only  with  a  keen  sense  of  humor  but 
also  with  an  unusual  perception  of  human 
nature. 

After  registering  at  the  Holbrooke — a 
substantial  survival  of  the  old  times — I 
called  by  appointment  on  Mr.  Ben  Taylor, 
a  much  respected  citizen  of  Grass  Valley 
and  probably  the  oldest  inhabitant  of 
Nevada  County,  having  reached  the  patri- 
archal age  of  eighty-six. 

51 


A  TBAMP  THKOUGH  THE  BRET  HARTE  COUNTRY 

Mr.  Taylor  has  a  charming  home  with 
extensive  grounds  overlooking  the  town 
and  surrounding  country.  In  his  garden  is 
a  spruce  he  planted  himself  forty-five  years 
ago,  and  apple  trees  of  the  same  age.  The 
spruce  now  has  the  appearance  of  a  forest 
tree  and  shades  the  whole  front  of  the 
house.  His  present  home  was  built  in  1864 
and  from  all  appearances  should  last  the 
century  out.  He  said  the  lumber  was  care- 
fully selected,  the  boards  being  heavier 
than  usual,  and  all  the  important  timbers, 
instead  of  being  nailed,  were  morticed  and 
dove-tailed.  This  thoroughness  of  work- 
manship accounts  for  the  excellent  condi- 
tion of  the  wooden  buildings  in  these  towns, 
many  of  which  were  constructed  over  fifty 
years  ago. 

Mr.  Taylor  came  to  Grass  Valley  Sep- 
tember 22,  1849,  and  has  lived  there  almost 
continuously  ever  since.  He  crossed  the 
plains  one  of  twenty-five  men,  the  last  of 
his  companions  dying  in  1905.  The  little 
band  suffered  many  hardships,  having  to 
be  constantly  on  watch  for  Indians,  though 
he  said  they  were  more  fearful  of  the  Mor- 
mons. They  came  over  the  old  emigrant 
trail  across  the  Sierra  Nevada.  When  they 
reached  Grass  Valley,  their  Captain,  a  man 
named    Broughton,    exclaimed:      ^'Boys! 

52 


AUBURN  TO  NEVADA  CITY 

here^s  the  gold;  this  is  good  enough  for 
us!'*  And  there  they  stayed,  the  twenty- 
five  of  them! 

Mr.  Taylor  had  frequently  met  Mark 
Twain,  but  never  to  his  knowledge,  Bret 
Harte.  In  common  with  other  men  who 
had  known  the  Great  American  Humorist, 
Mr.  Taylor  smiled  at  the  bare  mention  of 
his  name.  Twain's  breezy,  hail-fellow-well- 
met  manner,  combined  with  his  dry  humor, 
insured  him  a  welcome  at  all  the  camps; 
he  was  a  man  who  would  ''pass  the  time 
of  day''  and  take  a  friendly  drink  with  any 
man  upon  the  road.  Twain,  he  told  me, 
and  a  man  with  whom  he  was  traveling 
on  one  occasion,  lost  their  mules.  They 
tracked  them  to  a  creek  and  concluding 
the  mules  had  crossed  it.  Twain  said  to 
his  companion;  ''What's  the  use  of  both 
of  us  getting  wet?  I'll  carry  you!''  The 
other  complying.  Twain  reached  in  safety 
the  deepest  part  of  the  creek  and,  pur- 
posely or  not,  dropped  him.  A  man,  to 
play  such  pranks  as  this,  must  be  sure  of 
his  standing  in  a  primitive  community. 

Mr.  Taylor  is  known  to  everyone  in 
Nevada  County  as  "Ben."  His  genial 
manner  and  kindly  nature  are  apparent  at 
a  glance.  But  while  Ben  Taylor  was  on 
friendly  terms  with  Mark  Twain,  he  was 

53 


A  TKAMP  THROUGH  THE  BRET  HARTE  COUNTRY 

never  so  intimate  with  him  as  with  Bayard 
Taylor,  whom,  it  seems,  he  much  resembled. 
This  accidental  likeness,  combined  with  the 
similarity  of  names,  caused  many  more  or 
less  amusing  but  embarrassing  complica- 
tions, since  they  were  frequently  taken  for 
each  other  and  received  each  other's  cor- 
respondence. 

I  asked  Ben  Taylor — he  rightly  dislikes 
*' Mister,''  perhaps  the  ugliest  and  most 
inappropriate  word  in  the  English  lan- 
guage— if  the  shootings  and  hangings 
which  figure  so  prominently  in  the  stories 
of  the  romancers  were  not  exaggerations. 
He  said  he  certainly  was  of  that  opinion. 
I  said:  ^*As  a  matter  of  fact,  did  you 
ever  see  a  man  either  shot  or  hung  for  a 
crime?"  ^^I  never  did,"  he  replied  with 
emphasis.  **But  I  once  came  across  the 
bodies  of  several  men  who  had  been  strung 
up  for  horse-stealing;  that,  however,  was 
not  in  Grass  Valley." 

Ben  Taylor  was  present  when  Lola 
Montez  horsewhipped  Henry  Shibley,  edi- 
tor of  the  Grass  Valley  National,  for  what 
she  considered  derogatory  reflections  on 
herself,  published  in  his  paper.  It  can 
readily  be  understood  that  Grass  Valley 
was  at  that  time  a  place  of  importance, 
when   Lola    Montez    considered    it    worth 

54 


AUBURN  TO  NEVADA  CITY 

wliile  to  stay  there  several  years  and  sing 
and  dance  for  the  miners. 

In  parting,  Ben  Taylor  told  me  pa- 
thetically that  his  wife  had  died  a  few 
years  before  and  he  had  never  recovered 
from  the  blow;  *^I  am  merely  marking 
time  until  the  end  comes, ' '  he  added.  Since 
his  married  daughter  and  family  live  with 
him,  he  is  assured  in  his  latter  days  of 
loving  care  and  attention. 


55 


CHAPTER  VI 

E.  W.  M  ASLIN  AND  HIS  RECOLLEC- 
TIONS OF  PIONEER  DAYS  IN 
GRASS  VALLEY.  ORIGIN  OF 
OUR  MINING  LAWS 

To  Mr.  E.  W.  Maslin,  of  Alameda, 
of  whom  Ben  Taylor  said:  ^^He 
is  like  a  brother  to  me,''  I  am 
indebted  for  information  of  much 
interest,  bearing  on  the  olden  days  and 
Grass  Valley  in  particular.  Mr.  Maslin 
came  around  the  ^^Horn''  to  California,  in 
the  ship  Herman^  on  May  7,  1853.  He  ar- 
rived in  Grass  Valley  and  went  to  work  as 
a  miner  the  following  morning.  He  now 
holds,  and  has  for  years,  the  responsible 
position  in  the  United  States  Custom 
House,  San  Francisco,  of  Deputy  Naval 
Officer  of  the  Port.  The  clearing  papers 
of  every  vessel  that  leaves  San  Francisco 
bear  his  signature.  Although  in  his  eight- 
ieth year,  his  memory  is  as  clear  and  his 
sense  of  humor  as  vivid  as  when,  a  youth 
of  nineteen,  he  left  for  good,  Maryland, 
his  native  state.  Few  men  in  the  San  Fran- 
cisco bay  region  are  more  widely  known 
than  he.    His  ready  wit,  cheery  laugh  and 

56 


KECOLLECTIONS  OF  PIONEER  DAYS 

fund  of  information — for  he  is  extremely 
well-read — always  insure  for  him  an  atten- 
tive and  appreciative  audience. 

Speaking  of  Ben  Taylor,  he  told  me  a 
characteristic  incident,  which  being  also 
typical  of  the  men  of  '49,  I  give,  with  his 
consent,  as  related.  When  the  White  Pine 
excitement  in  1869  started  a  rush  of  pros- 
pectors to  Nevada,  Mr.  Maslin  caught  the 
fever  with  the  rest.  In  common  with  all 
who  dug  for  gold,  he  had  his  ups  and  downs, 
the  fat  years  and  the  lean  ones ;  at  the  time, 
his  fortunes  being  at  a  lew  ebb,  he  joined 
the  stampede.  Several  years  previous  to 
his  departure,  without  informing  his  wife, 
he  had  borrowed  of  Ben  Taylor,  three  hun- 
dred dollars,  secured  by  mortgage  on  his 
house  in  Grass  Valley.  At  White  Pine 
he  met  with  considerable  success,  and  in 
a  short  time  sent  his  wife  five  hundred  dol- 
lars, telling  her  for  the  first  time  of  the 
mortgage  on  their  home  and  requesting  her 
to  go  to  Ben  Taylor  at  once  and  pay  him 
in  full.  It  so  happened  that  Taylor  had 
called  on  Mrs.  Maslin  for  news  of  her  hus- 
band, as  she  was  reading  this  letter.  She 
immediately  tendered  him  the  check  with 
the  request  that  he  would  inform  her  to 
what  the  interest  amounted.  ^'Why, 
Molly,''    said    Ben    Taylor,    ''you    surely 

57 


A  TBAMP  THROUGH  THE  BRET  HARTE  COUNTRY 

ought  to  know  me  well  enough  to  know 
I  would  never  take  any  interest  on  that 
money ! ' '  When  it  is  remembered  that  the 
legal  rate  of  interest  at  that  time  was  ten 
per  cent,  and  that  double  that  amount  was 
not  infrequently  paid — Mr.  Maslin,  in  fact, 
expecting  to  pay  Taylor  something  like  five 
hundred  dollars — the  attitude  of  the  latter 
will  be  the  better  appreciated. 

This  seems  a  fitting  place  to  pay  a  hum- 
ble personal  tribute  of  respect  to  the 
memory  of  the  men  of  **the  fall  of  '49  and 
the  spring  of  '50. ' '  Not  since  the  Crusades, 
when  the  best  blood  of  Europe  was  spilt 
in  defense  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre,  has  the 
world  seen  a  finer  body  of  men  than  the 
Argonauts  of  California.  True,  the  quest 
of  the  ^'Golden  Fleece''  was  the  prime 
motive,  but  sheer  love  of  adventure  for 
adventure's  sake  played  a  most  important 
part.  Later  on,  the  turbulent  element  ar- 
rived. It  was  due  to  the  rectitude,  inherent 
sense  of  justice  and  courage  of  the  pio- 
neers that  they  were  held  in  check  and, 
by  force  of  arms  when  necessary,  made  to 
understand  the  white  man's  code  of  honor. 

So  much  in  song  and  story  has  been  said 
of  the  scramble  for  gold  in  the  early  days 
after  the  discovery,  and  so  little  attention 
given  to  the  artistic  and  aesthetic  sense  of 

58 


KECOLLECTIONS  OF  PIONEER  DAYS 

the  pioneers,  that  the  general  impression 
made  by  the  famous  old  mining  towns  of 
California,  when  seen  for  the  first  time, 
may  be  worth  recording.  In  the  massive 
stone  hotels  and  stores  of  that  period,  as 
well  as  in  the  careful  construction  of  dwell- 
ing houses,  they  exhibited  a  true  perception 
of  ^^the  eternal  fitness  of  things.''  The 
buildings  of  the  fifties,  in  their  extreme 
simplicity,  are  far  more  imposing  than  the 
nondescript,  pretentious  structures  of  to- 
day, and  will,  beyond  doubt,  in  usefulness 
outlast  them. 

As  a  result  of  ignoring  the  checker-board 
plan,  and  permitting  the  streets  to  follow 
the  natural  contour  of  the  hills  and  ravines, 
these  mountain  towns  seem  to  have  be- 
come blended  and  to  be  in  harmony  with 
the  wonderful  setting  Nature  has  provided. 
All  buildings,  residential  or  otherwise,  are 
protected  from  the  summer  heat  by  um- 
brageous trees.  Lawns  of  richest  green 
delight  the  eye,  and  vines  and  flowers  sur- 
round cottages  perched  on  steep  hillsides, 
or  half-hidden  in  deep  ravines.  The  first 
glimpse  from  a  distant  eminence  of  any  of 
the  old  mining  towns  conveys  the  sug- 
gestion of  peaceful  homes  buried  in  green- 
ery, basking  contentedly  in  the  brilliant 
sunshine,    surrounded  by   the  whispering 

59 


A  TEAMP  THROUGH  THE  BRET  HARTE  COUNTRY 

pines,   with   the   snow-clad   peaks   of   the 
Sierra  Nevada  for  a  background. 

You  also  receive  the  impression  of  clean- 
liness. If  there  were  any  old  cans,  scraps 
of  paper  and  miscellaneous  rubbish  lying 
about  in  any  town  through  which  I  passed, 
I  did  not  notice  them.  One  is  struck,  too, 
by  the  absence  of  the  'Vacant  lot^' — that 
unsightly  blot  of  such  frequent  occurrence 
in  all  towns  in  the  process  of  building,  es- 
pecially when  forced  by  ^^ booms'*  beyond 
their  normal  growth.  Fortunately  the  very 
word  ^^boom,''  in  its  significance  as  applied 
to  inflated  real  estate  values,  has  no  mean- 
ing in  these  towns,  with  the  result  that 
they  are  compact.  One  may  search  in  vain 
for  the  ''house  to  lef  sign.  When  no 
more  houses  were  needed,  no  more  houses 
were  built.  This  compactness  of  form, 
cleanliness,  and  the  elimination  to  a  great 
extent  of  the  rectangular  block,  contribute 
in  no  small  measure  to  that  indefinable 
suggestion  of  the  Old  World — a  charm  that 
haunts  the  memory  and  finally  becomes  a 
permanent  acquisition. 

However  clever  the  stories  of  the 
romancers — of  whom  Bret  Harte  pre- 
eminently stands  first — after  all,  their 
characters  were  intrinsically  but  creatures 
of  the  imagination;  the  pioneers  were  the 

60 


RECOLLECTIOISrS  OF  PIONEER  DAYS 

real  thing!  Yet  such  is  the  nature  of  this 
topsy-turvy  world,  the  copies  will  remain, 
whilst  the  originals  will  fade  away  and 
be  forgotten !  The  writer  will  always  hold 
it  a  privilege  that  he  had  the  pleasure  of 
meeting  in  the  flesh  a  remnant  of  the  men 
who  laid  the  foundation  of  the  institutions 
by  means  of  which  this  great  Common- 
wealth has  grown  and  prospered;  big, 
broad-minded,  strong  men  who,  whatever 
their  failings — for  they  were  very  human 
— were  generous  to  a  fault,  ever  ready  to 
listen  to  the  cry  of  distress  or  help  a  fallen 
brother  to  his  feet,  scornful  of  pettiness, 
ignorant  of  snobbery,  fair  and  square  in 
their  dealings  with  their  fellows.  Alas, 
that  it  should  have  come  to  ^'Hail  and 
Fareweir'  to  such  a  type  of  manhood! 

At  my  request,  Mr.  Maslin,  at  one  time 
a  practicing  attorney,  dictated  the  follow- 
ing succinct  account  of  the  origin  of  the 
mining  laws  of  California.  The  discovery 
at  Gold  Hill,  now  within  the  corporate 
limits  of  Grass  Valley,  of  a  gold-bearing 
quartz  ledge,  subsequently  the  property  of 
Englishmen  who  formed  an  organization 
known  as  ^'The  Gold  Hill  Quartz  Mining 
Company,''  led  to  the  founding  of  the  min- 
ing laws  of  California.  On  December  30, 
1850,  the  miners  passed  regulations  which 

61 


A  TEAMP  THROUGH  THE  BRET  HARTE  COUNTRY 

had  with  them  the  force  of  laws,  defining 
the  location  and  ownership  of  mines.  It 
was  provided  that  claims  should  be  forty 
feet  by  thirty  feet;  a  recorder  was  to  be 
elected  by  the  miners  and  all  difficulties 
arising  out  of  trespass  on  claims  were  to 
be  tried  before  the  recorder  and  two 
miners,  an  appeal  to  be  taken  to  the  justice 
of  the  peace. 

When  quartz  lodes  began  to  be  dis- 
covered and  worked,  it  was  found  that  the 
location  of  claims  by  square  feet  did  not 
protect  the  miner  or  afford  sufficient  terri- 
tory upon  which  to  expend  his  labor. 
Accordingly  a  miners'  meeting  was  held 
in  Nevada  City  on  December  20,  1852,  and 
a  body  of  laws  prescribed,  governing  all 
quartz  mines  within  the  county  of  Nevada. 
The  following  were  the  salient  features: 
^^Each  proprietor  of  a  quartz  claim  shall 
be  entitled  to  one  hundred  feet  on  a  quartz 
ledge  or  vein;  the  discoverer  shall  be  al- 
lowed one  hundred  feet  additional.  Each 
claim  shall  include  all  the  dips,  angles,  and 
variations  of  the  same.''  The  remaining 
articles  related  to  the  working,  holding  and 
recording  of  claims.  This  law  was  incor- 
porated in  the  mining  legislation  of  the 
State  of  Nevada  and  has  formed  the  basis 
of  the  mining  laws  of  each  territory  of  the 

62 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  PIONEER  DAYS 

United  States.  Thus  we  have  a  proof  not 
only  of  the  intelligence  of  the  early  miner, 
but  also  of  his  capacity  for  self-govern- 
ment. It  must  be  remembered  that  the 
miners  came  from  all  over  the  United 
States,  but  principally  from  the  West  and 
the  South.  Probably  none  had  seen  a 
quartz  ledge  before  coming  to  California, 
yet  the  necessity  for  extending  a  claim  as 
far  as  the  ledge  dipped  was  soon  perceived, 
as  also  the  taking  into  consideration  a 
change  in  the  direction  or  course  of  the 
lode.  Commenting  on  these  laws  and  the 
causes  leading  to  their  adoption,  Mr. 
Maslin  became  emphatic.    He  said : 

''No  body  of  rough,  uncouth,  pistolled 
ruffians,  such  as  Bret  Harte  depicts  the 
miners,  would  have  formed  such  a  group 
of  benevolent,  far-reaching  and  compre- 
hensive laws.  The  early  miner  represented 
the  best  type  of  American  character.  He 
was  brave,  undeterred  by  obstacles,  endur- 
ing with  patient  fortitude  the  perils  and 
privations  of  the  long  journey  of  half  a 
year  by  land,  or  a  tempestuous  voyage  by 
sea ;  undaunted  alike  by  the  terrors  of  Cape 
Horn  or  the  insidious  diseases  of  the  Isth- 
mus of  Panama.  He  met  the,  tp  him, 
hitherto  unknown  problem  of  the  extrac- 
tion of  gold  and  solved  it  with  the  wisdom 

63 


A  TRAMP  THROUGH  THE  BRET  HARTE  COUNTRY 

and  vigor  which  distinguish  the  American. 
Observe  that  the  provision  against  throw- 
ing dirt  on  another  man's  claim  anticipated 
by  many  years  the  famous  hydraulic  de- 
cision of  Judge  Sawyer.  It  is  another  way 
of  stating  the  maxim  of  law  and  equity: 
^so  use  your  own  property,  as  not  to  in- 
jure that  of  another.'  " 

Mr.  Maslin  agrees  with  Ben  Taylor  that 
the  hangings  and  shootings  of  the  period 
following  the  discovery  of  gold  have  been 
grossly  exaggerated.  On  this  point  he 
said:  *'I  will  venture  to  assert  that  in 
certain  of  the  Mississippi  Valley  States, 
in  their  early  settlement,  more  men  were 
killed  in  one  year  than  in  ten  of  the  early 
mining  years  in  California. ' '  Of  lynching, 
he  said:  ^' There  were  few  lynchings  in 
California,  and  those  mostly  in  the  south- 
ern tier  of  counties,  of  persons  convicted 
of  cattle-stealing."  In  connection  with 
lynching  he  related  a  serio-comic  incident 
that  occurred  in  Grass  Valley  in  the  early 
days. 

Several  fires  had  taken  place  in  the  town 
and  the  inhabitants  were  in  consequence 
much  excited.  A  watchman  on  his  rounds 
espied  a  light  in  a  vacant  log  cabin,  and 
entering,  caught  a  man  in  the  act  of  strik- 
ing a  match.      He  arrested  him  and  the 

64 


1^^ 

-•"■^^v^!!^*^ 

^^UrjijboL '<  i       ^mHI 

■K^^ii 

PLATE  VII 

E.  W.  Maslin  in  the 

Garden  of  His  Alameda  Home 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  PIONEER  DAYS 

populace  were  for  taking  summary  venge- 
ance. A  man  known  as  "Blue  Coat 
Osborne"  cried  out,  "Let's  hang  him! 
Nevada  City  once  hanged  a  man  and  Grass 
Valley  never  did!''  This  was  an  effective 
appeal,  for  the  rivalry  that  has  lasted  ever 
since  already  existed.  Fortunately,  wiser 
counsels  prevailed;  the  man  was  subse- 
quently tried  and  acquitted,  it  appearing 
that  he  was  a  traveling  prospector  who  had 
merely  entered  the  cabin  in  order  to  light 
his  pipe !  In  this  connection,  I  may  state 
that  Mr.  Maslin  confirmed  the  story  of  the 
three  friends  in  Nevada  City,  who  at- 
tempted to  withstand  "the  ordeal  by  fire." 
Mr.  Maslin  is  justly  jealous  for  the  repu- 
tation of  the  Argonauts.  Perhaps  Bret 
Harte's  miner,  with  his  ready  pistol,  was 
as  far  from  the  mark  as  Rudyard  Kipling's 
picture  of  Tommy  Atkins  as  "an  absent- 
minded  beggar" — an  imputation  the  real 
"Tommy"  hotly  resented.  At  the  same 
time,  such  stories  as  "The  Luck  of  Roar- 
ing Camp"  and  "Tennessee's  Partner," 
not  to  quote  others,  prove  Bret  Harte  con- 
ceded to  the  miner,  courage,  patience, 
gentleness,  generosity  and  steadfastness  in 
friendship.  If  Bret  Harte  really  "hurt" 
California,  it  was  because,  leaving  the 
State  for  good  in  February,  1871,  he  car- 

65 


A  TEAMP  THROUGH  THE  BRET  HARTE  COUNTRY 

ried  with  him  the  atmosphere  of  the  early 
mining  days  and  never  got  out  of  it.  He 
never  realized  the  transition  from  mining 
to  agriculture  and  horticulture,  as  the  lead- 
ing industries  of  the  State.  Thus  his  later 
stories  which  dealt  with  California,  written 
long  after  the  subsidence  of  the  mining  ex- 
citement, continued  to  convey  to  the  East- 
ern or  English  reader  an  impression  of 
the  Calif  ornian  as  a  bearded  individual,  his 
trousers  tucked  into  long  boots  and  the 
same  old  ^'red  shirf  with  the  sleeves 
rolled  back  to  the  shoulders !  As  lately — 
comparatively  speaking — as  the  Chicago 
Columbian  Exposition,  a  lady  told  me  she 
met  at  the  Fair  a  woman  who  said  she 
wanted  to  visit  California,  and  asked  if  it 
would  be  safe  to  do  so  "on  account  of  the 
Indians!"  While  Indians  do  not  appear 
in  Bret  Harte's  pages,  it  is  a  safe  con- 
jecture that,  through  association  of  ideas, 
this  lady  conjured  up  a  vague  vision  of  a 
** prairie  schooner'^  crossing  the  plains, 
harassed  by  the  Indian  of  the  colored 
prints ! 

The  following  picture  of  the  trying  of  a 
civil  suit  under  difficulties,  though  in  all 
probability  causing  little  comment  at  the 
time,  would  undoubtedly  do  so  at  the  pres- 
ent day,  were  the  conditions  possible.    In 

66 


EECOLLECTIONS  OF  PIONEER  DAYS 

1853  Mr.  Maslin  owned,  with  his  brother, 
a  one-fifth  interest  in  ten  gravel  claims  at 
Pike  Flat  near  Grass  Valley.  On  the 
ground  of  alleged  imperfection  of  location 
of  a  portion  of  these  claims,  they  were 
** jumped,^'  and  litigation  followed. 

The  case  was  called  before  **Si^'  Brown, 
a  justice  of  the  peace,  at  Rough  and  Ready, 
in  a  building  (of  which  I  obtained  a  photo- 
graph) used  as  a  hotel  and  for  other  pur- 
poses. In  the  long  room,  now  occupied 
as  a  store,  Judge  Brown  held  his  court. 
On  the  right  was  a  door  leading  to  the  bar. 
Extending  the  whole  length  of  the  room 
were  four  faro  tables.  At  the  rear  the 
judge,  jury,  attorneys  and  the  principals 
in  the  lawsuit  made  the  best  of  the  accom- 
modations. 

After  stating  the  case.  Judge  Brown  thus 
addressed  the  gamblers  at  the  faro  tables : 
^^Boys,  the  court  is  now  opened,  call  your 
games  low!''  In  accordance  with  this  re- 
quest, though  still  audible,  came  in  a 
monotonous  undertone,  the  faro  dealers' 
oft-repeated  call:  ^' Gents,  make  your 
game — make  your  game ! ' '  The  bets  were 
put  down  and  the  cards  called,  in  the  same 
subdued  voice.  At  intervals,  an  attorney 
on  one  side  or  the  other  would  arise  and 
>ay:    **I  move  you,  your  Honor,  that  the 

67 


A  TRAMP  THROUGH  THE  BRET  HARTE  COUNTRY 

court  do  now  take  a  recess  of  ten  minutes/* 
The  court :  ^  *  The  motion  is  sustained ;  but 
go  softly,  gentlemen,  go  softly!*'  It  is 
probably  needless  to  add  that  judge,  jury, 
principals,  attorneys  and  witnesses  filed 
out  of  the  door  leading  to  the  right;  re- 
turning in  ten  minutes  to  resume  the  trial 
to  the  not  altogether  inappropriate  accom- 
paniment from  the  faro  dealers,  ''Make 
your  game,  gents,  make  your  game!'* 

The  spirit  of  rivalry  between  Grass  Val- 
ley and  Nevada  City  has  been  accentuated, 
of  late,  by  the  efforts  of  the  former  town 
to  secure  the  honor  of  being  the  county 
seat,  on  the  claim  that  it  possesses  nearly 
double  the  population  of  Nevada  City. 
Politics  serve  to  intensify  the  feeling; 
Grass  Valley,  which  contains  many  people 
of  Southern  birth,  being  largely  Demo- 
cratic in  its  affiliations,  whilst  Nevada  City 
is  as  strongly,  and,  one  may  add,  as  con- 
servatively, Eepublican. 

Possibly  the  oldest  building  in  Grass 
Valley  is  the  Western  Hotel.  It  is  so 
hidden  in  the  surrounding  trees  that  it 
was  with  difficulty  I  took  a  photograph  in 
which  any  portion  of  the  hotel  itself  ap- 
peared. In  the  garden  stands  a  splendid 
English  walnut  over  forty  years  old;  and 
on  the  porch,  the  well  and  pump  to  which 

68 


EECOLLECTIONS  OF  PIONEER  DAYS 

I  have  before  alluded  as  a  distinguishing 
feature  of  the  old-time  hostelry,  add  a 
quaint  and  characteristic  touch. 

Grass  Valley  and  Nevada  City  are  nearly 
three  thousand  feet  above  sea  level.  The 
air,  in  consequence,  is  light  and  pure  and 
the  heat  seldom  excessive.  It  would  be 
difficult,  the  world  over,  to  find  a  more 
agreeable  or  salubrious  climate. 

It  was  with  genuine  regret  that  I  left 
Grass  Valley  the  following  morning;  not 
even  Sonora  possessed  for  me  a  stronger 
attraction.  As  I  paused  on  the  summit  of 
the  hill,  for  a  farewell  view  of  the  town, 
I  mentally  resolved — the  Fates  permitting 
—I  would  pay  another  and  more  protracted 
visit  to  this  land  of  enchantment. 


69 


CHAPTER  VII 

GRASS  VALLEY  TO  SM  ARTSVILLE. 

SUCKER  FLAT  AND  ITS 

PERSONAL  APPEAL 

I  WAS  heading  due  west  for  Smarts- 
ville,  just  across  the  line  in  Yuba 
County.  In  four  miles,  I  came  to 
Rough  and  Ready,  once  a  famous 
camp.  Save  for  the  inevitable  hotel,  now 
used  in  part  as  a  store,  there  was  nothing 
to  suggest  the  cause  of  its  pristine  glory 
or  the  origin  of  its  emphatic  designation; 
today  it  is  simply  a  picturesque,  rural 
hamlet.  In  Penn  Valley,  a  mile  or  two 
farther  on,  I  passed  a  smashed  and  aban- 
doned automobile,  the  second  wreck  I  had 
encountered.  I  thanked  my  star  I  traveled 
afoot;  heavy  going,  it  is  true,  in  places, 
but  safe  and  sure. 

Notwithstanding  the  ubiquity  of  the  auto- 
car, it  is  still  a  fact  that  between  the  man 
in  the  car  and  the  man  on  foot  is  set  an 
impassable  gulf.  You  are  walking  through 
a  mountainous  country,  where  every  bend 
of  the  road  reveals  some  new  charm;  ab- 
sorbed in  silent  enjoyment  of  the  scene, 
you  have  forgotten  the  very  existence  of 

70 


GBASS  VALLEY  TO  SMAETSVILLE 

the  machine,  when  a  raucous  ^'honk*'  jolts 
you  out  of  your  daydream  and  causes  you 
to  jump  for  your  life.  In  a  swirl  of  dust 
the  monster  engulfs  you,  leaving  you  the 
dust  and  the  stench  of  gasoline  as  souve- 
nirs, but  followed  by  your  anathemas! 
This  doubtless  is  where  the  man  in  the  car 
thinks  he  has  scored.  Perhaps  he  has. 
"When  the  dust  on  the  road  has  settled  and 
you  have  rubbed  it  out  of  your  eyes,  once 
more  you  forget  his  existence. 

But  the  very  speed  with  which  he  travels 
is  the  reason  why  the  man  in  the  car  misses 
nearly  all  the  charm  of  the  country  through 
which  he  is  passing.  On  this  tramp  I  took 
forty-odd  photographs,  all  more  or  less 
of  historical  interest.  Riding  in  an  auto- 
mobile, many  of  the  subjects  I  would 
not  have  noticed  or,  if  I  had,  I  would  not 
have  been  able  to  bring  my  camera  into 
play.  On  several  occasions  I  retraced  my 
steps  a  good  quarter  of  a  mile,  feeling  I 
had  lost  a  landscape  or  street  scene  I  might 
never  again  have  the  opportunity  to  be- 
hold. 

What  is  of  far  greater  consequence,  the 
man  on  the  road  comes  into  touch  not  only 
with  Nature,  but  the  Children  of  Nature! 
In  these  days,  automobiles  are  as  thick  as 
summer  flies ;  you  cannot  escape  them  even 

71 


A  TEAMP  THKOUGH  THE  BEET  HAETE  COUNTEY 

in  the  Sierra  foot-hills.  No  attention  is 
paid  them  by  the  country  people,  unless 
they  are  in  trouble  or  have  caused  trouble, 
which  is  mostly  the  case.  But  the  man 
who  ^^ hikes''  for  pleasure  is  a  source  of 
perennial  interest  not  unmixed  with  ad- 
miration, especially  when  walking  with  the 
thermometer  indicating  three  figures  in  the 
shade.  To  him  the  small  boy  opens  his 
heart;  the  ^^hobo''  passes  the  time  of  day 
with  a  merry  jest  thrown  in;  the  good 
housewife  brings  a  glass  of  cold  water  or 
milk,  adding  womanlike,  a  little  motherly 
advice ;  the  passing  teamster,  or  even  stage- 
driver — that  autocrat  of  the  *^ ribbons'' — 
shouts  a  cheery  ^'How  many  miles  today. 
Captain?"  or,  '^ Where  did  you  start  from 
this  morning,  Colonel?" — these  titles  per- 
haps due  to  the  battered  old  coat  of  khaki. 
All  the  humors  of  the  road  are  yours. 
In  fact,  you  yourself  contribute  to  them,  by 
your  unexpected  appearance  on  the  scene 
and  the  novelty  of  your  ''make-up,"  if  I 
may  be  pardoned  the  expression.  At  the 
hotel  bar,  you  drink  a  glass  of  beer  with 
the  local  celebrity  and  thus  come  into  im- 
mediate touch  with  ''the  oldest  inhabi- 
tant." After  dinner,  seated  on  a  bench 
on  the  sidewalk,  you  smoke  a  pipe  and  dis- 
cuss the  affairs  of  the  nation  or  of  the 

72 


GRASS  VALLEY  TO  SMAETSVILLE 

town — usually  the  latter — with  the  man 
who  in  the  morning  offered  to  give  you  a 
lift  and  never  will  understand  why  you 
declined.  Invariably  you  receive  courteous 
replies  and  in  kindly  interest  are  met  more 
than  half  way. 

The  early  romances,  the  prototypes  of 
the  modern  novel,  from  '^Don  Quixote'*  to 
*^Tom  Jones"  and  "Joseph  Andrews, '* 
were  little  more  than  narratives  of  adven- 
tures on  the  road.  "Joseph  Andrews'* 
in  particular — perhaps  Fielding's  master- 
piece— is  simply  the  story  of  a  journey 
from  London  to  a  place  in  the  country  some 
hundred  and  fifty  miles  distant.  In  these 
books  all  the  adventures  are  associated 
with  inns  and  the  various  characters, 
thrown  together  by  chance,  there  assem- 
bled. Dickens  unquestionably  derived  in- 
spiration from  Smollett  and  Fielding;  nor 
is  there  any  doubt  but  that  Harte  made 
a  close  study  of  Dickens. 

From  which  preamble  we  come  to  the 
statement;  if  you  would  study  human  na- 
ture on  the  road,  you  must  simply  go  where 
men  congregate  and  exchange  ideas.  The 
plots  of  nearly  all  Bret  Harte 's  mining 
stories  are  thus  closely  associated  with  the 
bar-rooms  and  taverns  of  the  mining  towns 
of  his  day.     What  would  remain  of  any 

73 


A  TEAMP  THKOUGH  THE  BEET  HAETE  COUNTEY 

of  Pbillpott's  charming  stories  of  rural 
England,  if  you  eliminated  the  bar-room 
of  the  village  inn?  In  hospitality  and 
generous  living,  the  inns  of  the  mining 
towns  still  keep  up  the  old  traditions.  The 
card  room  and  bar-room  are  places  where 
men  meet;  to  altogether  avoid  them  from 
any  pharisaical  assumption  of  moral  su- 
periority is  to  lose  the  chance  of  coming 
in  contact  with  the  leading  citizen,  philan- 
thropist, or  eccentric  character. 

In  the  old  romances  it  must  be  admitted 
there  is  much  brawling  and  heavy  drink- 
ing, as  well  as  unseemliness  of  conduct. 
Yet  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  hotel  bars 
and  saloons  abound  in  all  the  old  mining 
towns,  the  writer  throughout  his  travels 
and  notwithstanding  the  intense  heat,  not 
only  saw  no  person  under  the  influence  of 
liquor,  but  also  never  heard  a  voice  raised 
in  angry  dispute.  Moderation,  decency  and 
a  kindly  consideration  for  the  rights  of 
others  seem  habitual  with  these  people. 

It  is  fifteen  miles  from  Grass  Valley  to 
Smartsville,  and  I  arrived  at  the  Smarts- 
ville  Hotel  in  time  for  the  midday  meal. 
Smartsville  has  ''seen  better  days,"  but 
still  maintains  a  cheerful  outlook  on  life. 
The  population  has  dwindled  from  several 
thousand  to  about  three  hundred.     It  is, 

74 


GRASS  VALLEY  TO  SMARTSVILLE 

however,  the  central  point  for  quite  an 
extensive  agricultural  and  pastoral  coun- 
try surrounding  it. 

The  swinging  sign  over  the  hotel  bears 
the  legend,  ' '  Smartsville  Hotel,  John  Pear- 
don,  Propr/'  The  present  proprietor  is 
named  ''Peardon,"  but  everyone  addressed 
him  as  ''Jim."  Having  established  a 
friendly  footing,  I  said:  ''Mr.  Peardon, 
I  notice  the  sign  over  the  door  reads  John 
Peardon.  How  is  it  that  they  all  call  you 
'Jim?'  ''  "Oh,'Mie  replied,  "John  Pear- 
don was  my  father,  /  was  born  in  this 
hotel ;*' — another  of  the  numerous  in- 
stances that  came  under  my  observation 
of  the  way  these  people  "stay  where  they 
are  put.'' 

John  Peardon  was  an  Englishman.  The 
British  Isles  furnished  a  very  considerable 
percentage  of  the  pioneers,  the  evidences 
whereof  remain  unto  this  day.  The  swing- 
ing signs  over  the  hotels  for  one ;  another, 
the  prevalence  in  all  the  mining  towns  of 
Bass's  pale  ale.  You  will  find  it  in  the 
most  unpretentious  hotels  and  restaurants. 
An  Englishman  expects  his  ale  or  beer,  as 
a  matter  of  course,  whether  at  the  Equator 
or  at  the  Arctic  Circle.  When  I  first  ar- 
rived in  California  in  1868,  I  drifted  down 
into  the  then  sheep  and  cattle  country  in 

75 


A  TEAMP  THROUGH  THE  BRET  HARTE  COUNTRY 

the  lower  end  of  Monterey  County.  An 
English  family  living  on  an  isolated  ranch 
sent  home  for  a  girl  who  had  worked  for 
them  in  the  old  country.  Upon  her  arrival, 
the  first  question  she  asked  was :  "How  far 
is  it  to  the  church  ! '  ^  The  second :  '  ^  Where 
can  I  get  my  beer  ? '  ^  When  informed  there 
was  no  church  within  a  hundred  miles  and 
that  it  was  at  least  fifteen  miles  to  the 
nearest  saloon,  the  poor  woman  felt  that 
she  was  indeed  all  abroad!  Bereft  at  one 
blow  of  the  Established  Church  and  Eng- 
lish Ale,  the  solid  ground  seemed  to  have 
given  way  from  under  her  feet.  For  her, 
these  two  particulars  comprised  the  whole 
of  the  British  Constitution. 

Smartsville  possessed  a  sentimental  in- 
terest for  me,  for  the  reason  that  in  the 
sixties  my  father  mined  and  taught  a  pri- 
vate school  in  an  adjoining  camp  bearing 
the  derogatory  appellation  "Sucker  Flat.'^ 
What  mischance  prompted  this  title  will 
never  now  be  known.  In  my  father's  time, 
it  contained  a  population  of  nearly  a  thou- 
sand persons ;  and  judging  from  the  man- 
ner in  which  the  gulch  and  the  contiguous 
flat  have  been  torn,  scarred,  burrowed  into 
and  tunneled  under,  if  gold  there  was,  most 
strenuous  efforts  had  been  made  to  bring 
it  to  light. 

76 


GKASS  VALLEY  TO  SMAKTSVILLE 

I  asked  if  there  was  anyone  in  Smarts- 
ville  who  would  be  likely  to  remember  my 
father,  and  was  referred  by  Mr.  Peardon 
to  **Bob''  Beatty,  who,  he  said,  had  lived 
in  Smart  sville  all  his  life  and  knew  every- 
body. As  Mr.  Beatty  was  within  a  stone  ^s 
throw,  at  the  Excelsior  Store,  I  had  no 
difficulty  in  finding  him.  Introducing  my- 
self, I  asked  Mr.  Beatty  if  he  remembered 
my  father.  "To  be  sure  I  do,''  he  ex- 
claimed, ''/  went  to  his  school,  and,'' 
laughing  heartily,  ' '  well  I  remember  a  lick- 
ing he  gave  me ! "  He  said  that  among  the 
boys  who  attended  that  school,  several  in 
after  years,  as  men,  had  become  prominent 
in  the  history  of  the  State. 

Mr.  Beatty — now  a  pleasant,  genial  gen- 
tleman of  fifty-two — very  kindly  walked 
with  me  to  the  brow  of  the  hill  command- 
ing a  view  of  Sucker  Flat,  and  pointed 
out  the  exact  spot  where  the  school  had 
stood,  for  not  a  stick  or  a  stone  remains 
to  mark  the  locus  of  the  town — it  is  simply 
a  name  upon  the  map. 

I  mention  this  incident  as  being  another 
proof  of  the  extraordinary  hold  the  Sierra 
foot-hill  country  has  upon  the  people  who 
were  born  there,  as  well  as  upon  those  who 
have  drifted  there  by  force  of  circum- 
stances.   It  is  forty-six  or  forty-seven  years 

77 


A  TRAMP  THROUGH  THE  BRET  HARTE  COUNTRY 

since  my  father  conducted  that  school,  yet 
I  felt  so  sure  from  previous  experiences 
there  would  be  in  Smartsville  someone  who 
remembered  him,  that  I  determined  to  in- 
clude it  in  my  itinerary. 


78 


CHAPTER  VIII 

SMARTSVILLE  TO  MARYSVILLE. 
SOME  REFLECTIONS  ON  AUTO- 
MOBILES AND  "HOBOES" 

EARLY  the  next  morning  I  started 
for  Marysville,  the  last  leg  in  my 
journey,  and  a  long  twenty  miles 
distant.    I  had  been  dreading  the 
pull  through  the  Sacramento  Valley,  hav- 
ing a  lively  recollection  of  my  experience 
in  the  San  Joaquin,  on  leaving  Stockton. 
The  day  was  sultry,  making  the  heat  still 
more  oppressive.    After  leaving  the  foot- 
hills for  good,  I  walked  ten  miles  before 
reaching  a  tree,  or  an\iihing  that  cast  a 
shadow,  if  you  except  the  telephone  poles. 
For  the   first  time   I   realized  there  was 
danger  in  walking  in  such  heat,  and  even 
contemplated  the  shade  of  the  telephone 
poles  as  a  possibility !    Fortunately  a  light 
breeze  sprang  up — the  fag  end  of  the  trade 
wind — and,  though  hot,  it  served  to  dispel 
that  stagnation  of  the  atmosphere  which 
in  sultry  weather  is  so  trying  to  the  nervous 
system.    Marysville  is  nearly  one  hundred 
miles  due  north  of  Stockton — of  course, 
much  farther  by  rail — and  the  same  arid, 

79 


A  TEAMP  THROUGH  THE  BRET  HARTE  COUNTRY 

treeless,  inhospitable  belt  of  country  be- 
tween the  cultivated  area  and  the  foot-hills 
apparently  extends  the  whole  distance.  It 
is  a  country  to  avoid. 

About  two  miles  short  of  Marysville, 
while  enjoying  the  shade  cast  by  the  trees 
that  border  the  levee  of  the  Feather  Eiver, 
which  skirts  Marysville  to  the  south,  a  man 
in  an  auto  stopped  and  very  kindly  offered 
to  give  me  a  lift.  I  thanked  him  politely 
but  declined.  He  seemed  amazed.  ^'Why 
don't  you  ride  when  you  canT'  he  asked. 
'^ Because  I  prefer  to  walk,"  I  answered. 
This  fairly  staggered  him.  The  idea  of  a 
man  preferring  to  walk,  and  in  such  heat, 
was  probably  a  novel  experience,  and 
served  to  deprive  him  of  further  speech. 
He  simply  sat  and  stared  and  I  had  passed 
him  some  twenty  yards  before  he  started 
his  machine. 

A  sturdy  tramp  walking  in  the  middle  of 
the  road,  who  had  witnessed  the  scene, 
shouted  as  he  passed:  "Why  didn't  yer 
ride  wid  de  guy?"  I  replied  as  before, 
*  ^  Because  I  prefer  to  walk ; ' '  adding  for  his 
benefit,  '^I've  no  use  for  autos."  Where- 
upon he  threw  back  his  head  and  burst  into 
peal  after  peal  of  such  hearty  laughter  that, 
from  pure  contagion,  I  perforce  joined  in 
the  chorus.     In  the  days  of  Fielding  and 

80 


SMAKTSVILLE  TO  MAKYSVILLE 

Sam  Johnson,  this  fellow  would  have  been 
dubbed  ^  ^  a  lusty  vagabond ; ' '  in  the  slangy 
parlance  of  today,  he  was  a  ^* husky  hobo,'' 
equipped  as  such,  even  to  the  tin  can  of  the 
comic  journals.  To  him,  the  humor  of  a 
brother  tramp  refusing  a  ride — in  an  auto- 
car, at  that — appealed  with  irresistible 
force. 

To  walk  in  the  middle  of  the  road  is  char- 
acteristic of  the  genuine  tramp.  There 
must  be  some  occult  reason  for  this  pecul- 
iarity, since  in  a  general  way,  it  is  far 
easier  going  on  the  margin.  Perhaps  it 
is  because  he  commands  a  better  view  of 
either  side,  with  a  regard  to  the  possible 
onslaught  of  dogs.  There  is  something 
about  a  man  with  a  pack  on  his  back  that 
infuriates  the  average  dog,  as  I  have  on 
several  occasions  found  to  my  annoyance. 
Eobert  Louis  Stevenson,  in  his  whimsical 
and  altogether  delightful  ^^  Travels  with  a 
Donkey,"  thus  vents  his  opinion  anent  the 
dog  question: 

^  *  I  was  much  disturbed  by  the  barking  of 
a  dog,  an  animal  that  I  fear  more  than  any 
wolf.  A  dog  is  vastly  braver  and  is,  be- 
sides, supported  by  a  sense  of  duty.  If  you 
kill  a  wolf  you  meet  with  encouragement 
and  praise,  but  if  you  kill  a  dog,  the  sacred 
rights  of  property  and  the  domestic  affec- 

81 


A  TRAMP  THROUGH  THE  BRET  HARTE  COUNTRY 

tions  come  clamoring  around  you  for 
redress.  At  the  end  of  a  fagging  day,  the 
sharp,  cruel  note  of  a  dog's  bark  is  in  it- 
self a  keen  annoyance ;  and  to  a  tramp  like 
myself,  he  represents  the  sedentary  and 
respectable  world  in  its  most  hostile  form. 
There  is  something  of  the  clergyman  or  the 
lawyer  about  this  engaging  animal;  and  if 
he  were  not  amenable  to  stones,  the  boldest 
man  would  shrink  from  traveling  a-foot. 
I  respect  dogs  much  in  the  domestic  circle ; 
but  on  the  highway  or  sleeping  a-field,  I 
both  detest  and  fear  them.'' 

I  confess  to  a  feeling  of  sympathy  with 
the  men  we  so  indiscriminately  brand  with 
the  contemptuous  epithet,  **hobo."  In  the 
first  place,  the  road  itself,  with  its  accom- 
panying humors  and  adventures,  forms  a 
mutual  and  efficacious  bond.  How  little  we 
know  of  the  ''Knights  of  the  Road,"  or 
the  compelling  circumstances  that  turnod 
them  adrift  upon  the  world!  ''All  sorts 
and  conditions  of  men"  are  represented, 
from  the  college  professor  to  the  ex- 
pugilist.  I  have  "hit  the  ties"  in  company 
with  a  so-called  "hobo"  who  quoted  Milton 
and  Shakespeare  by  the  yard,  interspersed 
with  exclamations  appreciative  of  his  en- 
joyment of  the  country  through  which  we 
were  passing.    And  once  when  on  a  tramp 

82 


SMARTSVILLE  TO  MARYSVILLE 

along  the  coast  from  San  Francisco  to 
Monterey,  I  fell  in  at  Point  San  Pedro  with 
a  professional,  who  bitterly  regretted  the 
coming  of  the  Ocean  Shore  Railway,  then 
in  process  of  constrnction.  '^For  years,'' 
said  he,  * '  I  have  been  in  the  habit  of  making 
this  trip  at  regular  intervals,  on  my  way 
south.  I  had  the  road  to  myself  and  thor- 
oughly enjoyed  the  peaceful  beauty  of  the 
scene ;  but  now  this  railroad  has  come  with 
its  mushroom  towns,  and  all  the  charm  has 
gone.  Never  again  for  me!  This  is  my 
last  trip!'' 

I  have  not  the  slightest  doubt  that  sheer 
love  of  the  road — and  only  a  tramp  knows 
what  those  words  mean — is  the  controlling 
influence  which  keeps  fifty  per  cent  of  the 
fraternity  its  willing  slaves.  What  was 
Senhouse — that  most  fascinating  of 
Maurice  Hewlett's  creations — but  a  tramp! 
A  gentleman  tramp,  if  you  please,  but  still 
a  tramp.  What  is  the  reason  that  Senhouse 
appeals  so  strongly  to  the  imagination! 
Simply  because  he  loved  Nature.  And  in 
this  matter-of-fact  period  when  poetry  is 
dead  and  even  a  by-word,  the  man  who 
loves  Nature,  if  not  a  poet,  at  least  has 
poetry  in  his  soul.  In  a  decadent  age  sym- 
bolized by  the  tango  and  the  problem 
play,  it  is  at  least  an  encouraging  sign 

83 


A  TKAMP  THROUGH  THE  BRET  HARTE  COUNTRY 

for  the  future  that  such  a  character  as  Sen- 
house  came  to  the  jaded  reader  of  the 
erotic  fiction  of  the  day,  as  a  whiff  of  sea 
breeze  on  a  parched  plain,  and  was  hailed 
with  corresponding  delight. 

Of  course  there  are  ^* hoboes''  and 
*' hoboes,''  as  in  any  other  profession,  but 
so  far  as  my  experience  goes,  the  ^^hobo" 
is  an  idealist.  Of  the  many  reasons  he  has 
taken  to  the  road,  not  the  least  is  the  free- 
dom from  the  shackles  of  convention  and 
the  ^ '  Gradgrind ' '  methods  of  an  utilitarian 
and  materialistic  age.  Nor  is  he  a 
pessimist.  Whatever  his  trouble,  the  road 
has  eased  him  of  his  burden  and  made  him  a 
philosopher. 

Thoreau,  writing  in  the  middle  of  the 
last  century,  deplores  the  fact  that  in  his 
day,  as  now,  but  few  of  his  countrymen  took 
any  pleasure  in  walking,  and  that  very 
rarely  one  encountered  a  person  with  any 
real  appreciation  of  the  beauty  of  Nature, 
which  if  he  could  but  see  it,  lay  at  his  very 
door.  Speaking  for  himself  and  companion 
in  his  rambles,  he  says:  ^^We  have  felt 
that  we  almost  alone  hereabouts  (Concord, 
Massachusetts)  practiced  this  noble  art; 
though,  to  tell  the  truth,  at  least  if  their 
own  assertions  are  to  be  received,  most  of 
my  townsmen  would  fain  walk  sometimes, 

84 


SMAKTSVILLE  TO  MAKYSVILLE 

as  I  do,  but  they  cannot.  No  wealth  can 
buy  the  requisite  leisure,  freedom  and  in- 
dependence which  are  the  capital  in  this 
profession.  It  comes  only  by  the  grace  of 
God.  It  requires  a  direct  dispensation 
from  Heaven  to  become  a  Walker.  Ambu- 
lator nascitur  non  fit.  Some  of  my  towns- 
men, it  is  true,  can  remember  and  have 
described  to  me,  walks  which  they  took 
ten  years  ago,  in  which  they  were  so 
blessed  as  to  lose  themselves  for  half  an 
hour  in  the  woods." 

"Who  is  there  who  walks  habitually,  who 
does  not  know  the  man  who  tells  you  of 
the  walks  he  ^^ttsed  to  take!"  You  have 
known  him,  say  a  dozen  years.  During  all 
that  time,  to  your  knowledge,  his  walks 
have  practically  been  limited  by  the  dis- 
tance to  his  office  and  back  from  the  ferry 
boat.  When  you  urge  him  for  perhaps  the 
twentieth  time,  to  essay  a  tramp  with  you, 
he  will  say  he  would  like  to  very  much,  but 
unfortunately  so-and-so  renders  it  impos- 
sible. And  then  looking  you  in  the  eye,  he 
will  tell  you  how  much  he  enjoyed  tramps 
he  took,  of  twenty  or  thirty  miles — but  that 
was  before  you  knew  him !  As  if  a  Walker 
with  a  big  ''W,"  as  Thoreau  writes  the 
word,  would  remain  satisfied  with  the  mem- 
ory of  walks  of  twenty  years  ago ! 

85 


A  TRAMP  THROUGH  THE  BRET  HARTE  COUNTRY 

I  had  heard  of  the  ''Marysville  Buttes," 
as  one  has  heard  of  Madagascar,  but  their 
actual  appearance  on  the  landscape  came  as 
the  greatest  surprise  of  the  trip.  As  I  first 
caught  sight  of  them  when  within  a  few 
miles  of  Marysville,  they  gave  me  a  distinct 
thrill.  I  could  hardly  believe  my  eyes  and 
thought  of  mirages;  for  those  pointed, 
isolated  peaks  rise  precipitously  from  the 
floor  of  the  Sacramento  valley;  in  fact, 
their  bases  are  only  a  mile  or  two  from  the 
river.  They  have  every  indication,  even 
to  the  unscientific  eye,  of  having  been  up- 
heaved by  volcanic  action.  Perhaps  that 
accounts  for  the  uncanny  impression  they 
impart. 

A  walk  of  twenty-one  or  two  miles  with- 
out food,  in  any  kind  of  weather,  is  apt  to 
produce  an  aching  void.  My  first  efforts  on 
reaching  Marysville  were  therefore  di- 
rected to  finding  the  sort  of  place  where  I 
could  eat  in  comfort.  The  emphasis  which 
Eobert  Louis  Stevenson  employs  when 
upon  this  most  important  quest  would  be 
amusing  were  it  not  also  a  vital  problem  in 
your  own  case.  There  is  nothing  humorous 
per  se  in  hunger  or  thirst ;  at  any  rate,  not 
until  both  are  appeased.  With  the  black 
coffee  and  cigar,  you  can  tip  your  chair  at 
a  comfortable  angle  against  the  wall,  and 

86 


SMARTSVILLE  TO  MARYSVILLE 

watching  the  delicate  wreaths  of  smoke  in 
their  spiral  upward  course,  previous  to 
j&nal  disintegration,  smile  at  the  persistent 
energy  with  which  an  hour  ago  you  sys- 
tematically worked  the  town  from  end  to 
end,  anxiously  peering  in  the  windows  of 
uninviting  restaurants  until  you  finally 
found  that  little  ^'hole  in  the  wall"  for 
which  you  were  looking,  with  the  bottle  of 
Tipo  Chianti,  the  succulent  chops  and  the 
big  red  tomatoes,  in  the  window.  It  is 
always  to  be  found  if  you  have  the 
necessary  perseverance.  The  genial  Italian 
proprietor,  with  the  innate  politeness  of 
his  countrjTuen,  will  not  bore  you  with 
questions  as  to  where  you  have  come  from, 
whither  you  are  going,  or  what  you  are 
walking  for,  anyway,  etc.,  etc.  He  accepts 
you  just  as  you  are — haversack,  camera, 
big  stick  and  all,  hanging  them  without 
comment  on  the  hook  behind  your  head; 
while  you  simply  tell  him  you  want  a  good 
dinner,  the  best  he  can  give  you,  but  to  in- 
clude the  chops,  tomatoes  and  Tipo  Chianti. 
With  a  smile  and  that  artistic  flip  of  the 
napkin  under  his  arm,  which  only  he  can 
achieve,  he  sets  about  giving  his  orders. 
Later  on,  after  a  hot  bath,  a  shave  and  the 
luxury  of  a  clean  shirt,  feeling  at  peace 
with  the  world  and  refreshed  in  body  and 

87 


A  TRAMP  THROUGH  THE  BRET  HARTE  COUNTRY 

soul,  YOU  set  out  to  examine  the  town  in 
comfort  and  at  your  leisure. 

In  the  mining  days,  Marysville  ranked 
next  to  San  Francisco,  Sacramento  and 
possibly  Stockton,  not  only  in  interest  but 
in  actual  volume  of  business  transacted.  It 
was  the  natural  outlet  for  all  the  foot-hill 
country  tributary  to  Grass  Valley,  Nevada 
City,  and  Smartsville.  There  the  miners 
outfitted  and  there,  when  they  had  ''made 
their  pile,''  they  began  the  process — subse- 
quently completed  in  Sacramento  and  San 
Francisco — of  reducing  it  to  a  negligible 
quantity.  That,  of  course,  is  merely  a 
reminiscence,  but  as  the  center  of  one  of 
the  most  prosperous  grain  and  fruit-raising 
sections  of  the  Sacramento  Valley,  Marys- 
ville is  still  a  place  of  considerable  import- 
ance. The  old  town  is  very  much  in 
e\idence;  so  much  so  that,  in  spite  of  the 
numerous  modern  buildings,  the  general 
effect  produced  is  of  age,  as  age  is  under- 
stood in  California.  I  doubt  if  San 
Francisco  before  the  fire,  or  Sacramento 
today,  could  show  as  many  substantial, 
solid  buildings  dating  back  to  the  fifties. 


88 


CHAPTER  IX 

BAYARD  TAYLOR  AND  THE 

CALIFORNIA  OF  FORTY-NINE. 

BRET  HARTE  AND  HIS 

LITERARY  PIONEER 

CONTEMPORARIES 

And  here  in  old  Marysville,  the  county 
/^L  seat  of  Yuba  County  and  situ- 
/  ^  ated  on  its  extreme  western 
.^  JL  boundary,  I  ended  my  tramp, 
having  covered  a  distance  of  approxi- 
mately two  hundred  and  fifty  miles,  ex- 
clusive of  retracements.  The  ideal  time  to 
visit  the  Sierra  foot-hills  would  be  in  the 
late  Spring  or  early  Autumn.  I  was  com- 
pelled to  grasp  the  opportunity  when  it  of- 
fered or  forego  the  pleasure  altogether. 
Nor  is  it  necessary,  of  course,  to  walk ;  the 
roads,  whilst  generally  speaking  not  classed 
as  good  going  for  automobiles,  are  at  least 
passable.  I  was  surprised  at  the  number 
of  high  grade  machines  in  evidence,  in  all 
the  towns  of  importance  mentioned  in  this 
narrative.  There  remains  also  the  alter- 
native of  a  good  saddle  horse,  or,  better 
still,  a  light  wagon  with  camping  outfit, 
thus    rendering    hotels    unnecessary,    the 

89 


A  TRAMP  THROUGH  THE  BRET  HARTE  COUNTRY 

elimination  of  which  would  probably  pay 
the  hire  of  horse  and  wagon. 

Half  a  century  is  a  long  period.  You 
could  probably  count  on  the  fingers  of  one 
hand  persons  now  living  in  the  Sierra  foot- 
hills who  have  any  recollection  of  ever  hav- 
ing seen  Bret  Harte.  It  must  also  be 
remembered  that  in  the  fifties  his  reputa- 
tion as  an  author  had  not  been  established. 
Of  all  that  group  of  brilliant  young  men 
who  visited  the  mines  in  early  days,  which 
included  for  a  brief  space  '^  Orpheus  C. 
Kerr'^  and  '^Artemus  Ward,''  I  can  well 
imagine  that  Bret  Harte  attracted  the  least 
attention.  It  is  extremely  doubtful  to  my 
mind  if  he  ever  had  much  actual  experience 
of  the  mining  camps.  To  a  man  of  his 
vivid  imagination,  a  mere  suggestion  af- 
forded a  plot  for  a  story;  even  the  Laird's 
Toreadors,  it  will  be  recalled,  were  com- 
mercially successful  when  purely  imagin- 
ary; he  only  failed  when  he  subsequently 
studied  the  real  thing  in  Spain. 

Bret  Harte  was  a  man  who  in  a  primitive 
community  might  well  escape  notice.  In 
appearance,  manner  and  training,  he  was 
the  exact  antithesis  of  Mark  Twain.  He 
was  a  student  before  he  was  a  writer  and 
possessed  the  student's  shy  reserve.  I  can 
well  imagine  him,  a  slight  boyish  figure, 

90 


THE  CALIFORNIA  OF  FORTY-NINE 

flitting  from  camp  to  camp,  wrapped  in  his 
own  thoughts,  keeping  his  own  counsel. 
Yet  he  alone  of  that  little  band,  unless  you 
except  Mark  Twain,  possessed  the  divine 
spark  we  call  '^ genius/^  Centuries  after 
the  names  of  all  the  rest  are  buried  in 
oblivion,  Bret  Harte's  stories  of  the  Ar- 
gonauts in  the  mining  towns  of  California 
will  remain  the  classics  they  have  already 
become. 

Yet  as  before  stated,  when  once  I  got 
fairly  started  on  the  road,  the  pioneers 
themselves  and  their  worthy  descendants 
absorbed  my  interest  and  assumed  the 
center  of  the  stage  to  the  exclusion,  for  the 
time  being,  of  the  romancers;  who,  after 
all,  each  in  his  own  fashion,  depicted  only 
what  most  appealed  to  him  in  the  charac- 
ters of  these  same  men  and  their  con- 
temporaries. Bayard  Taylor  in  his 
interesting  work  ^*E1  Dorado,'*  the  first 
edition  of  which  appeared  in  1850,  thus 
states  his  opinion  of  the  men  of  '49 : 

'^Abundance  of  gold  does  not  always 
beget,  as  moralists  tell  us,  a  grasping  and 
avaricious  spirit.  The  principles  of  hos- 
pitality were  as  faithfully  observed  in  the 
rude  tents  of  the  diggers,  as  they  could  be 
by  the  thrifty  farmers  of  the  North  and 
West.      The    cosmopolitan    cast    of   char- 

91 


A  TKAMP  THROUGH  THE  BRET  HARTE  COUNTRY 

acter  in  California,  resulting  in  the  com- 
mingling of  so  many  races,  and  the 
primitive  mode  of  life,  gave  a  character  of 
good-fellowship  to  all  its  members ;  and  in 
no  part  of  the  world  have  I  ever  seen  help 
more  freely  given  to  the  needy,  or  more 
ready  co-operation  in  any  human  prop- 
osition. Personally,  I  can  safely  say  that 
I  never  met  with  such  unvarying  kindness 
from  comparative  strangers. '' 

That  last  sentence  also  spelt  the  literal 
truth  in  my  experience.  Even  the  dogs 
were  kindly  disposed  and  though  I  carried 
a  ^^big  stick,''  except  by  way  of  companion- 
ship and  as  an  aid  in  climbing,  I  might 
safely  have  left  it  at  home.  And  while  at 
times  I  walked  through  a  wild,  mountainous 
and  almost  deserted  country,  the  idea  of 
possible  danger  never  occurred  to  me. 
When  finally  one  encountered  a  human 
being,  he  invariably  proved  a  courteous, 
obliging  and  companionable  personage  to 
meet. 

Bayard  Taylor  attended  in  September 
and  the  beginning  of  October,  1849,  the 
convention  at  Monterey,  which  gave  to 
California  its  first,  and  in  the  opinion  of 
many,  its  best  constitution.  He  closes  his 
review  of  the  proceedings  with  these  force- 
ful and  prophetic  words : 

92 


THE  CALIFORNIA  OF  FORTY-NINE 

^'Thus  we  have  another  splendid  example 
of  the  ease  and  security  with  which  people 
can  be  educated  to  govern  themselves. 
From  that  chaos  whence  under  a  despotism 
like  the  Austrian,  would  spring  the  most 
frightful  excesses  of  anarchy  and  crime, 
a  population  of  freemen  peacefully  and 
quietly  develops  the  highest  form  of  civil 
order — the  broadest  extent  of  liberty 
and  security.  Governments,  bad  and  cor- 
rupt as  many  of  them  are,  and  imperfect 
as  they  all  must  necessarily  be,  neverthe- 
less at  times  exhibit  scenes  of  true  moral 
sublimity.  What  I  have  today  witnessed 
has  so  impressed  me ;  and  were  I  a  believer 
in  omens,  I  would  augur  from  the  tranquil 
beauty  of  the  evening — from  the  clear  sky 
and  the  lovely  sunset  hues  on  the  waters  of 
the  bay — more  than  all,  from  the  joyous 
expression  of  every  face  I  see,  a  glorious 
and  prosperous  career  for  the  State  of 
California.^' 

Southern  California,  by  which  is  under- 
stood all  of  the  State  south  of  the  Tehach- 
api  Mountains,  was  mostly  settled  by  and 
is  still  to  a  great  extent  the  objective  point 
of  people  from  the  East  and  Middle  West. 
Most  of  them  came  in  search  of  health  and 
brought  a  competency  sufficient  for  their 
needs.      When    President    Wilson,    then 

93 


A  TEAMP  THROUGH  THE  BRET  HAETE  COUNTRY 

Governor  of  New  Jersey,  visited  California 
in  1911,  he  came  over  the  southern  route 
to  Los  Angeles.  Addressing  a  Pasadena 
audience  he  said:  ^'I  am  much  disap- 
pointed when  I  see  you.  I  expected  to  find 
a  highly  individualized  people,  characters 
developed  by  struggle  and  mutual  effort; 
but  I  find  you  the  same  people  we  have  at 
home,''  and  more,  to  the  same  effect. 
Subsequently,  Governor  Wilson  delivered 
an  address  at  the  Greek  Theater,  Berkeley, 
before  the  students  of  the  University  of 
California.  At  its  close,  Mr.  Maslin 
mounted  the  stage,  a  copy  of  the  paper 
containing  the  account  of  the  Pasadena 
speech  in  his  hands,  and  asked  the  Gov- 
ernor if  he  was  correctly  reported;  to  which 
he  replied  in  the  affirmative.  ' '  Governor, ' ' 
said  Mr.  Maslin,  you  came  into  the  State  at 
the  wrong  gate!''  '^Gate?  gate? — what 
gate?"  inquired  the  Governor.  "You 
should  have  come  through  Emigrant  Gap, 
through  which  most  of  the  emigrants  from 
'49  and  on  entered  the  State.  Now,  Gov- 
ernor, the  people  you  saw  at  Pasadena 
never  suffered  the  trials  of  a  pioneer's  life, 
they  are  not  knit  together  by  the  memory  of 
mutual  struggles  and  privations.  When 
you  come  to  the  State  again,  come  through 
Emigrant  Gap.     Let  me  know  when  you 

94 


THE  CALIFOKNIA  OF  FORTY-NINE 

come,  and  I  will  introduce  you  to  a  breed 
of  men  the  world  has  never  excelled.*' 
With  the  smile  with  which  millions  have 
since  become  familiar,  Governor  Wilson 
grasped  the  hand  of  the  pioneer  and  said : 
''When  I  come  again,  as  I  feel  sure  I  shall, 
I  shall  let  you  know.'* 

The  following  morning  I  took  the  train 
for  my  home  in  Alameda.  As  I  sat  and 
meditated  on  the  scenes  I  had  witnessed 
and  the  character  of  the  people  I  had  met, 
it  was  borne  in  upon  me  that  this  had  been 
the  most  interesting  as  well  as  enjoyable 
experience  of  my  life.  Already  the  tem- 
porary discomforts  produced  by  heat  and 
soiled  garments  had  faded  into  insignifi- 
cance, and  assumed  a  most  trivial  aspect 
when  I  reviewed  the  journey  as  a  whole. 
They  were  part  of  the  game.  To  again 
quote  ''Trilby,''  tramping  "is  not  all  beer 
and  skittles."  Your  true  tramp  learns 
to  take  things  as  he  finds  them  and 
never  to  expect  or  ask  for  the  impos- 
sible. He  will  drink  the  wine  of  the 
country,  even  when  sour,  without  a  gri- 
mace; pass  without  grumbling  a  sleep- 
less night;  plod  through  dust  ankle  deep, 
without  a  murmur;  there  is  but  one  vul- 
nerable feature  in  his  armor,  and  with 
Achilles,  it  is  his  heel!    And  it  is  literally 

95 


t3d 


g  5•i^^a2:2- 


00   3 

to-?  r' 


PLATE  IX 

Main   Hoist  of  the  Utiea  Mine, 

Angel's  Camp,  Sitnated  on  the  Suniiiiit 

of  a  Hill  Overlooking  the  Town 


PLATE  X 

The  Stanislaus  River,  Near 

Tuttletown,  "Running  in  a  Deep  and 

Splendid  Canon" 


PLATE  X 

The  Stanislaus  River,  Near 

Tuttletown,  "Running  in  a  Deep  and 

Splendid  Canon" 


ws 


5^  2:  ^  r" 


ft 


'^  1?^  o  ^  ^  " 


I'LATE  XIII 

Main  Street,  Sonora,  "So  Shaded 

by  Trees  That    Buildings 

Are  Half-hidden" 


/ 


PLATE  XV 

Main  Street,  San  Andreas, 

"During  the  Mid-day  Heat,  Almost 

Deserted" 


PLATE  XVI  •*'^i 

Metropolitan  Hotel,  San  Andreas; 
in  the  Bar-room  of  Which  Occurred  the 
"Jumping  Frog"  Incident 


■H-  ^  M  g-  g:  :l  r 

^-  ^ ::  r  ^  I  ^ 

o  ;;^  &-  S  oi  3  ^ 

d   S  »  :;  c  ®  X 


n^? 


p:^  HI  ^  B 


^  ^ 


p   4   2   - 


^^.2    ^.'^H-^° 


5 


PLATE  XX 

Middle  Fork  of  the  American  River, 

Near  Auburn,  and  Half  a  Mile  Above  Its 

Junction  With  the  North  Fork 


5-       ="   a   ^  H^  >  3 


^  O  y 


o 

S   p   >*  2-  ^ 


^        Q 


S3 

^  X 


PLATE  XXIII 
A  Bit  of  Picturesque  Nevada 
City,  Embracing  the  Homes  of 
Leading  Citizens 


Ith 


HERE  ENDS  A  TRAMP  THROUGH  THE 
BRET  HARTE  COUNTRY  BY  THOMAS 
DYKES  BEASLEY.  PUBLISHED  BY  PAUL 
ELDER  AND  COMPANY  AND  PRINTED 
FOR  THEM  AT  THEIR  TOMOYE  PRESS 
IN  THE  CITY  OF  SAN  FRANCISCO, 
UNDER  THE  DIRECTION  OF  JOHN 
SWART,  IN  THE  YEAR  NINETEEN 
HUNDRED    AND    FOURTEEN. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  AT  LOS  ANGELES 

THE  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 

This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below 


-r  r   ' 

-^■^      5  1937 

•''^'^  2  0   ]943 

m 

■\.-; 

SI^P  2  4  1948 

WAY  1  0  1937 

.   MAY  24  mf 

Ml'  &i  m 

W-/»--    -'          '   • 

JM     3  193b 

34  IS?:' 

r   . 

t 

1 

APR  2  8  W'^^^ 

MAYS  d 

r 

^C  J.J' 


i^4s. 


iaN  B     1942 

Form  L-9-15m-2,'36    I 


'^-^J. 


I 


PLEA<5^  DO   NOT    REMOVE 
THIS    BOOK  CARD    | 

^^tllBRARYQ^ 


'^A 


^mmy\^'^ 


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mm. 


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